More Exercises from "Keys to Drawing"

Well, first of all I hope that anyone is reading this had a Happy and Merry Christmas! I wish you a Happy New Year as well!  With the holidays in full swing and family visiting I haven't been able to draw every day, but I still been able to do some drawing. Here is a sample of some of the projects from my book I have been able to do. 

The first one is an attempt to use "masters" techniques. First to copy an original and then to emulate what a master has done in ones own art. I used a self portrait by Kathe Kollowitz done in charcoal. I think I chose this piece simply because it was done in charcoal. I have never really used this medium before and found it a quite enjoyable. Here is an image of the original followed by my copy:

The next image is the piece where I had to emulate this style in a piece of art done on my own. I did use a photo image from shutterstock.com for the model. Here is the outcome:

These last few pieces are just some of the additional projects from this same book. There are some short gesture drawings and then some studies in shading or tone. The last piece was a photo found in the book. The idea was to redraw it matching the tones found in the original photo with the recreated piece done in pencil. 

Original

                                                                       

                                                                  My Re-creation

BLAHHHHH!!!!

It's times like this I wish I could erase or better yet, tear out pages from my skecthbook....=/

Still Life

I attempted to work on some still life drawings last Friday. Trying to incorporate what I have been learning lately.

Peppers!

Worked on this exercise from my book today. The first pepper was drawn from memory, second I used a reference. Again, I did no erasing, used restating and some blind drawing. Let me know what you think.

Just some random sketches from earlier this month.

I have a new book!

I went and bought myself the book, "Keys to Drawing," by Bert Dodson, even after I said I would till after Christmas. However, I couldn't wait. I wanted to get started on these techniques ASAP! Things were a bit slower at work today and so I tried to draw my hands....didn't work out so well. Tonight I tried drawing my feet, things don't look so great.

In this book the author talks about restating your lines and drawing blind, both of which I tried to do in each of these sketches. All I have to say, is it's a lot harder that it would seem. I am definitely going to need some time to get use to these techniques and make sure I am asking myself the right questions as I draw. 

Here are the sketches, let me know what you think:

Digital Painting

Here is a WIP, something I started working on this weekend. Comments always appreciated. Again just trying to learn how to paint using my tablet. The original was taken from here.

Heading Back to School

I went and talked with an academic advisor at UVU last Friday. Exploring the possibility of going back to school to study Illustration! I have to admit I was about to cancel my appointment due to my lack of self confidence when it comes to art. However, I have to say I was sooooo glad I went. My questions were all answered and then in addition to meeting with an advisor I got to meet with Don Seegmiller (you can find a link to his website here on my blog, see below). Don is an amazing Illustrator and I have always been amazed by his work, my goal is to be that good one day.

I found out a couple of years ago he actually lives in Utah and he teaches at UVU! I ddin't think I would really ever take any classes with him, let alone meet him! Can't describe how excited and scared I was when I got to talk to him. That was quite the experience...especially when he asked to look at my most sketchbook. It was amazing. He gave me some compliments and some tips to get better.

First thing he told me to do was to never erase. Second thing never tear pages out of my sketchbook. Third keep drawing everyday. He even told me I should invest in this book and use it religiously, "Keys to Drawing." I think I will wait to buy it until after Christmas....maybe Santa will bring it to me, if I am good that is!

I will have to get some more images scanned and posted on the web site. Drawing at work is proving to be a challenge, things are getting really busy. I need to spend more time doing this at night while I am home anyway if I don't get another post about between now and the year end, Merry Christmas!

Textures...and another portrait.

Always wanted to be able to draw the cool little boxes full of different textures I have seen on other people's blogs...so this was my attempt. The portrait I did was started yesterday, finished it up today. I think I need to work on the shading some more. The scan doesn't quite do it justice and as always comments always appreciated!

Just some random stuff I tried drawing the other day....was having a hard time trying to figure out what to draw. Half way through the fish ( I was at work and didn't have my colored pencils) I decided to just do it all in graphite....well I didn't like the way that worked and then tried to go over it in colored pencils....yeah, made it look even worse. Oh well, just another thing to add to the list of things not to do!

Also tried working on my tree again, not looking any better in my opinion.

Becoming a better artist.

I wanted to make a post about becoming a better artist as a reference for myself. I have a long way to go before I can even begin giving advice about art. However, I read this article the other day on Deviantart.com and wanted to post it to my blog as a way to remember where I read this article. I find great stuff on the internet all the time at work, but never write it down. Then when I want to go back and reference it I can never find it again...anyhow, if this helps someone else along the way, even better!

Mas Cabezas!!

I tried another portrait based of a real photo with some dynamic shading. After the success I feel I had on Friday, I decided to make another attempt. This time I tried working at angle slightly to the side. I also wanted to draw a man's face. I don't think this one turned out quite as good as the last drawing I did, but I am happy with the way it turned out. As I begin shading these sketches I start to get nervous...afraid I am really going to mess something up. Anyway let me know what you think!

Oh yeah, here's the link for the reference.

Before I forget here are some Loomis heads I worked on today as well. Wish I hadn't tried to add shading to the one, can't stand it.

Star Wars

I did a sketch last night based on a tutorial for Ian McCain from the Star Wars edition of Imagine FX. It was a tutorial on how to paint Darth Maul from Episode I. While I didn't do the painting I did make an attempt at recreating the character with colored pencil. The other two unfinished faces are sketches I was trying to do at work today, again based on the book by Andrew Loomis. Cheers!

I worked on trying to replicate some heads done in the book by Jack Hamm. Those didn't turn out so well. I then tried to draw a portrait of some lady, photo taken from ShutterStock.  I know it doesn't match up perfectly with the reference photo, but I was so pleased with the result. As usual though the scanner seems to mess my drawings up a bit. All done with a ballpoint pen.

Perspective

I decided to change things up again, starting reading Andrew Loomis' book on drawing. Had a lot of good information surrounding perspective. Some sketches done while reading his book.

Rocks and a chain

Top from today, bottom from yesterday. Really enjoying using a pen. The last week or so, everything has been done using a regular ball point pen, it's a lot of fun. Of course making mistakes are harder to get rid of...=D

Drawings worked on over the last few days. I spent most of the weekend trying to paint up some jack-o-lanterns I drew, but I have been having a hard time figuring out how to "render" a picture in Photoshop. I may post up what I was able to do at a later time, in the mean time here is the latest.

New Post

I have to admit, unfortunately, I didn't do any drawing last week. My schedule changed at work all last week and for some other reason I was feeling quite frustrated and down with everything, not just drawing (maybe it's the fact that we have to fork over several thousand dollars to fix our roof.)

Gratefully my schedule is back to normal and I have been able to do some drawing and sketching at work the last couple of days. Here are some things I have done. I am still trying to get better at drawing the figures and specifically the head at the moment. I feel like I am getting better at drawing the face from straight on as well as portraits from the side. But when I start trying to draw from any other angles it just gets messy.

 

Ohhh sooooo flufffyyyy!!!

Got tired of drawing heads, thought I would try something else. Used photos from National Geographic. Worked with pen on these and used some colored pencils on the King Penguin. I had a lot of fun working on these little guys.

New Studies

Here is what I have done over the last couple of days. Tried doing some more portrait drawings, still not looking any better and getting really frustrated with drawing portraits.

Ears

Fridays work, too tired to say anything more.

The Nose

I bought another figure drawing book, by Jack Hamm. "Drawing The Head and Figure," so far I really like this book. The author has some different methods than Andrew Loomis, but I don't have any complaints with either artist/author. I hope, that by going through both books I continue to hone my skills. Now I just need to find a book about drawing and sketching in general. My line work really needs some help. Anyway, here are the noses I have been working on..smell ya later homes! =) 

Self Portrait

Here's the latest on this piece. I am sooo frustrated with this, still looks so amateurish to me. Can't stand it. It's interesting thought because I read something online today at another web site that says blending graphite tends to look amateurish, cross hatching is a better approach. Perhaps I will try and redo this using that technique.

Update on WIP

Here's where the tree is now. Think I spent about another 1.5 hours on this. The more I look at this I realize how bad the composition is. I didn't block the tree in very good on my paper and just decided to go with this anyway. As a result it looks a bit scrunched up...

WIPs

Here are the two WIPs (works in progress) I have currently going on. I haven't really been "sketching" in the literal term, but I have been working on both of these pieces. Both are done with pencil. Trying to develop tighter lines and smoother shading, especially on the self portrait. I am frustrated with the self portrait, because I am having a hard time with the nose. The other thing that still frustrates me is it still looks so amateurish.

I guess I just have to keep pushing myself, maybe one day everything will just click into place.