LesleyCarol - Art School Journey

[brohawx]

I feel more rhythm on side A.

[LesleyCarol]

Thanks for the feedback, it's really helpful!

[HANDRO]

I think for me its the opposite, with B, it looks more rounded so it gives me a sense of continuous flow.

[LesleyCarol]

Thanks! Yeah I feel like B is easier to look at but maybe just needs more rhythm to it.

[LesleyCarol]

The last of my material forms for this round. I'm tired I was doing okay until I hit the silver pyramid. And for some reason it just hit me that I could've looked up a reference

[mau.wamp]

Wow this exercise looks really difficult! Great job, Lesley!
I particularly like the black cloth, you kept the volume of the ball really nicely!

[LesleyCarol]

Thank you! Some definitely took a lot more time than others

[LesleyCarol]

While on vacation I definitely want to tighten up my anatomy skills, especially with so many people really working to get better at it right now. If you see anything off, please don't hesitate to tell me.

I'm kicking this side journey off with a redo of the proportion assignment I completed a few years ago. I wasn't expecting the comparison to be so drastic
I'm happy my observation skills and overall draftsmanship has improved despite having to take a break.

[LesleyCarol]

I did the female proportion study today! I was a lot easier than yesterday now that I've gotten used to drawing circles and curves. I feel like her limbs are a little off though, let me know what you think!

And here are the new female and male proportions together. I realized I made the male's body too wide so I had to fix it for this and I kept the details to a minimum.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Term 8 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Also, also, I did my first environment for the term. I did my best not to worry about being perfect and made decisions based on the composition, lighting, etc. I kept some happy accidents in there and focused more on shapes, value harmony and lighting. 'Twas fun.

[afoster1138]

FIrst of all, what awesome progress! That's awesome! Second, I love the environment, it gives me those good, good island vibes. Keep this up!

[LesleyCarol]

Thanks! I had to indulge since it's still summer

[LesleyCarol]

Here's my first figure drawing in a WHILE. It was really fun, especially comparing the drawing and finding the issues. One thing I want to do next time is draw boxes and cylinders first and then go from there. I think this is the best way to set me up for creating my own poses.
For the next couple of days I'll be doing figure drawings and fixing them afterward.

[gregorya]

This is amazing. These shiny surfaces must have taken a very long time to render. Maybe you should add some bottom shadows, because the shapes look like they are floating in space. How did you do the shading of the cloth?
The figure drawings are fairly accurate as well.

[LesleyCarol]

Thanks so much!
I actually imagined some of them floating so it's alright with me. I wanted to focus on the material and I probably would've burned out trying to add shadows since each one took about an hour, some more or less. I do agree shadows would've helped the presentation though!

For the cloth, I painted the base color/value first, then added shadow with the second darkest color using a hard brush. After that I switched to a soft brush and added the first layer for the highlights. From there I decreased the brush size and went higher in value with each pass. I made sure to focus on areas that the light directly hits. Then I went back to the shadows. Instead of going lighter, I just went a few values darker and painted in areas where it would be hard for the light to reach.

For the cylinder I color picked from the palette I made during the study, then stuck to similar values for the black and white one. The main rule I tried to follow was "keep it simple" since there isn't that much going on with cotton fabric.

I hope that huge wall of text was helpful and readable! I had to go back and proofread it

[LesleyCarol]

I did another figure study and used cylinders this time to understand the volume. This really showed that I need to find a solid system to rely on to construct the figure. It got messy fast trying to draw out the shapes.

I also finished another landscape study today, this time I went for snow. I was watching the Hunger Games while doing this and I think it influenced the piece a little

[Kosmonaut]

Your landscape study and figure study look really good and accurate to the reference. I can't wait to do figure studies next week as well. Have figure studies helped you a lot with the human figure and the proportions?

[LesleyCarol]

Yeah I think so! That combined with an inktober challenge I did. I feel like regular studies along with big daily challenges are a combination that's really helped me. I like doing draw 100 challenges or drawing something everyday for a month.

[Kosmonaut]

That's what I also plan on doing for figure drawing I want to dedicate the whole rest of the month to figure and gesture drawing and see where that takes me and how good I can get at it.

[Raneaa]

that last landscape looks great lesley!

[LesleyCarol]

That's the spirit! Looking forward to seeing it.