Jons Art Progress Blog

Hi Everyone!

I'm Jon, I'm a Graphic Designer from Devon, UK.
I grew up desperatley wanting to be a concept artist and pursued it through college, but back then I was a little naive to the work that was involved; I thought I could wing it purely on passion alone and skimped out on a lot of the fundamentals. I was young and ended up dropping out of college. Although I enjoy the career path i've made for myself as a Graphic Designer, I've always felt like there's something missing and I always end up coming back to Marc Brunets videos and yearning for the feeling i got when drawing or looking at concept and character art.
I discovered his Art School and decided I'm going to "start again" with drawing. My drawings lack a lot of basic stuff behind them and I find i just end up getting frustrated and unhappy with everything I draw now because of it. So i've starte Art School with a fresh mind and am doing it for myself this time without the necessary pressure of making a job out of it.
I'm pretty busy now with my job and 2 kids, but i feel like i'm building momentum already and am super excited about the journey ahead and meeting other people along the way!
I'm currently waiting for my new pc to arrive so i'm drawing on paper at the moment, here are some scans from the first video on Gesture Drawing:

Hi Dangras! Thank you
Ah that's great to hear- and comforting after seeing your progression too! You looking to slowly overlap into full time Concept/character art eventually or still keep UX on the side?
I am enjoying it loads and am hoping my motivation stays the way it's going!
Likewise to you man, keep the updates coming!

So I've finished the perspective video and picked up the Art Study Schedule!

Perspective
So i'm not going to lie, I really struggled with the perspective assigment. Which I guess makes sense as I don't really practice it! Marc's video made complete sense, I think I just struggled to stay focused on drawing my room- particurly sizing proportions of each peice of furniture, so i deffo need to spend more time with it. Super informative lesson none the less!

Schedules
I'n grateful for the free schedules as it gives my days structure and focus. I have to admit that even the "busy" schedule was a bit unrealistic for me But that's purely down to being surounded by two kids all day This would be no sweat if I was still young and single!

A lot of the focuses are on "study" for anatomy of portraits, bodys etc. But tbh i'm not 100% sure if I'm doing the studying right- being able to sit down in peace is a bit of a rare luxury for me so I just try and draw what I can... hopefully it's still going in as effectively!

Anyway, ramble over! Here are some scans from over the past week:

Not had a chance to do anymore videos from Term 1, but i've been loosely trying to keep to the schedule when I can!

My eldest had a meltdown about his drawing not being as good as the example shown in a tutorial he was following. When he went to bed I decided to re-draw a character i'd drawn when I was about 12/13 years old. I showed it to him this morning to make a point that no one gets it right first time and that practice pays off. Hopefully it went in!
2003:

last night:

I then used the Inspiring Artist Colour Study slot this evening to play around with block colour like Yoshitaka Amano does in some of his more Pop Art style peices:

Sticking to the schedule was hard today as I somehow overslept and had to rush into "work" (a computer ungracefully sprawled out over my dining room table at the moment.) but I got excited thinking about looking back on my work a year from now if I stick with Art School. Hopefully i'll cringe!

Hey y'all!
So i did one last version of that block coloured sketch as a poster (my years as a Graphic Designer means i make 100 versions of everything please dont judge me)

I watched the Visual Communication from Term 1 and was pleasently surprised by how short it was! Not a practical lesson obviously but was actually quite nice to have a breather and just sit back and take it in.
Here's a handful of scans from the past week!
I had a bad day when i did this one; was just so exausted and I hadnt actually left the house that day and stayed up late which i regretted. So the intended practice from the schedule ended up being doodles:

But then I got back at it with more gestures- this time stretching out to some feet, hands and faces!





Some breif anatomy study:

and actually did an hour long gesture class rather than 30 mins- i feel like i end up overdoing the sketch though?

Either way, i feel like i'm improving. Ive hesitated the Photoshop for Digital Production class as i wanted to wait for my new computer to arrive (tomorrow!! ) so I can run Photoshop on something a bit stronger than a potato!

I might update more reguarly instead of batch uploading these scans each week as its quite tedious to do it all in one go!