Sky - Skyclops Art Journey

Hey! Artist handle Skyclops, names Sky, looking forward to learning and sharing my journey. Gonna be very slow I think due to some other priorities in my life, but I'm still trying to push to become a much better artist! See you in the discord

Here's recent studies I was doing just to start off by sharing a little of what I've played around with.

Wow, already been just over a year since I purchased and tried to dive into the discord. It's been very slow going so far, I've drawn but I can't say I've stuck with any type of curriculum or training.
I'm bookmarking this forum which is something I feel I should have done a long while ago. I feel like initially I didn't really understand the use of this location, after joining the discord I had gone through a thought of "why don't I just post there instead" but I feel like I have a much better developed idea of how to really use this forum now. My own personal space, not fully expecting of interaction from others, just a place for me to watch myself, journal my thoughts and share my progress while inviting input if others feel it's needed.

Creating an environment around myself that encourages me to stay more focused is crucial, I know marc and many other artists have mentioned this in countless videos
For me, minimizing all non related things on my computer (cause I don't want to close out of important things I have open), not using CSP, reverting to pen and paper for now until I feel like I want to work more digitally. It really is easier for me to just get right into traditional work.
I think traditional work helps me reduce the effect of digital distractions, keeps my hands off the mouse and keyboard while a video from marc or another could keep me focused.
Making a comfortable space, a flat clear surface where I can put my tools, comfortable lighting is still something I feel like I need to work on, but this will do for now..

That's a big step, the next one that I'm still working on is figuring out where I can fit practice and assignments into my life. I do have time off but I often struggle with motivation and exhaustion through the days.. Drawing needs to be a higher priority compared to video games but I'm still not sure how much weight I want it to have.. That uncertainty often keeps me from committing to anything real, ultimately leading me down the path of procrastination, so right now I'm stating for my self that I would like to spend 2 hours a week working on Art School, assignments, videos and whatever else type of studies I can develop as I go. It's a baby step and I hope to increase the amount of time per week that I spend doing this.

I'm watching over the first videos again and taking notes to keep the topics at the forefront of my mind, making some quick summarized bits to help me refresh myself every time I revisit the concept of practicing. I think these types of refreshers help me get into a better state, prepare to absorb even more information. Allowing time for me to digest the information I'm refreshing on also provokes food for thought every now and then, concepts that I think are important, to help with my mentality and get into a more inspired state. Even now, reminding myself that verbiage is important for my mentality, I've already removed multiple instances of the word "trying" in this paragraph, trying depends on forms of measurement, you don't try to draw, you do or you don't. The word "try" has it's use, but I use it as a crutch far too often.

Rambling aside, my goal right now is to use this place as a personal journal space for my progress, a goal to update this forum after each session sitting and going through practice/study sessions whether I'm posting a wall of text and my thoughts like this, or actually have a picture to share (which usually I should) to go along with my thoughts.
For now here is a picture of my "Note/Journal" I made this sketchbook myself with printer paper and some twine. My first time exploring that path, it was fun.

I'll touch base again soon.
Sky

Today my simple reminder will be to try to create that habit of Active Observation. Daily 5 minute exercise of just taking in my surroundings, seeing the way colors clash and change with different lighting, the way shadows work with multiple sources of light is interesting to me. A bigger picture I think I could look at is the shape language of everything around me. Today I simple looked around my room, all the clutter around me and due to being in front of my computer I had about 6 light sources to consider and it was interesting seeing which ones overpowered the others, what created shadows, how strong they were even if there was another light source that was nearby, how the color of the light source didn't seem to make the biggest difference, it was simply more the strength and distance away of each. tomorrow I'll find somewhere outside of my place to analyze and think more about the contours and shapes. I'm not sure if that's the right way to approach it but it just takes exploration and I'm sure I'll find something that helps me along the way. Downside right now, the assignment mentions trying to find something you didn't understand and looking it up to help but.. I don't feel like I had any questions about anything around me.. Maybe that's a product of being in a surrounding I'm comfortable with, basic shapes, mundane objects, at most maybe the folds of crumpled clothing on the ground could come to mind for questioning? but then what do I question? The visual folds are right there and I can see them, the way the light hits those objects is right in front of me. It's only day one.

For the videos, I find the photoshop video interesting.. I'll keep watching it later but I'm taking a break for today. I'm not in a financial position to try out the subscription format of CC right now, but I might consider it in the future, I do know it's not necessary for the course in general.. Regardless, Digitally I definitely plan to utilize either CSP or Krita, for now though, I will pursue learning with pencil and pen.

A little more progress, I do need to start working more through the course that I actually PAID for xD but for now I'm just trying to get myself to draw, get some actual experience in. Watched a video on youtube from Steven Travers Art who I've watched before, just going over a bit of a 10 minute draw from reference. Daily freehand exercise. I'm going to keep trying these I think and for now I'll stick to one subject a couple times and then switch up to something else to see if I learn more. This is Mount Rainier in Washington (US) 10 minutes went by faster than I expected and my timer didn't have audio so I think it ended up being more like 15 minutes.. Not a big deal, I'm not trying to be a stickler for the actual time constraint, just getting myself to draw for now is pretty big regardless. I paused at various points to mentally measure where everything seemed to be, I feel I got a decently accurate landscape based on the reference I was looking at but without varying lineweight and treating this "digital" exercise as a pen and paper with no erasing exercise, I could definitely do with experimentation to help portray depth in the image as well as figure out how to convey silhouettes without spending a bucket of time trying to hatch in the tree branches in the foreground.

Doing some blind studies, really didn't have much energy for art. I wanna improve that area of my life lol but it's definitely the hardest area to improve. As an artist I visited recently said "you're always going to want to play video games more" -Steve. Great words honestly, it's a challenge to want to draw over playing video games, and for me it helps to understand how our limbic system works.. Anyway, that's some knowledge pathway I've been diving down as of recent weeks,

todays sketches, trying to just break down a piece drawn by REIQ to help me work out facial proportions better. I struggle doing these studies because I have a lot of trouble "trusting the process" and feeling like I'm analyzing it appropriately.. However, the bottom row, right side just before that I had been looking over all of these and realizing how width/length proportions were completely off so... that realization and then drawing that 6th head doing a little extra guidance and measuring really felt good. It's still off of course, but gotta remind myself that the goal is NOT perfection.