Semester 2 Week 8

Midterms have been hot in my mind this past week. I have gotten a chance to really push myself this semester and I feel like I'm starting to see some nice results.  It definitely is great to see the work I'm pushing out and how it could affect me later in my career. Obviously not just as a stepping stone, but more as a tool that I can go back to later. 

The few downsides I have with this week is that I REALLY need to start scanning stuff right away. I cannot just leave it to the last minute. I mean I had to spend about 6+ hours organizing, scanning, preparing on photoshop, and uploading the different assignments I had not gotten around to. I'll try my hardest to stay on top of that biz.

Now with Figure Drawing 2. I think I'm finding a great way to create clearer drawings. One thing that bugs me with most of my drawings is that I tend to be very heavy handed early on. This creates a messy look and its hard to tell the lines I put down early and the ones I put down later. So I just used a harder pencil first for some light lines, then went over with a softer one with more confident strokes. I really liked the feeling of how easy it was to glide with a 4B over some 2h. Oh also... we are learning backs.

Color coded. It makes the drawing even easier to follow.

The Media assignment is having us work on a personal piece now. I really like how the class is set up, first master copy then do something personal. I feel like I learn a lot and at the same time can expand my wings. A lot of what I got below was all thanks to sketchbook class. Doing lots of iterations then has me in the habit to be able to do a bunch till I get the image I want. Whats also nice, when I was finished with the iterations, the reference picture taking came out a lot easier. 

Light and Form egg drawing has come to an end. I am happy to say I learned a lot with this one. This is definitely an assignment where you can gain so much by doing it over just reading about it. For example, the proportions are a bit wonky. I think if I spent some extra time getting them just right, I would not have to spend time later with it at all. This is a bad habit of mine where I rush things and try to fix them as I go on. The other thing I learned was how to achieve a smoother look. I do not think I will ever want to do this because of the time it took. However, if I had to, I can. ALSO! I am improved with reflective lighting. It was the bane of my existence for the longest time. I still have trouble, but I'm getting there.

Small egg drawing done in graphite

Color and composition. Yea... I'm taking this class. I have not posted much because I have not gotten around to scanning them in. I feel like if there is any class I will fail at, this will be it. Somewhere along the lines, I am doing the work but I have not gotten around to much of it as I wanted. I'm definitely going to take the time to do a LOT LOT more every week from now on. 

Cast drawing is coming along nicely, and I'm starting to see a lot of results here. Seriously, it looks pretty impressive in person. Right now, I am putting in the 5 values since the proportions are looking nice. I just have to smooth out those tones then I can get to the next thing.

Charcoal. About 12-15+ hours put into it already

Semester 2 week 7

Even though its late, and I have lots of work tomorrow I am going to try my hardest to post my blog. Whether or not people read it, this is a good way to reflect on what I have done. I wish I could just go really in depth, but right now I dont have the time. So this will have to suffice as to see what I've done and what I plan to do for the future. I've been listening to a lot of podcast and one in particular, Lean into Art, has showed me the concept of self reflection.  Before I was posting on the whim someone might see this. Now I know I want to post so that I myself can see it.

Cast drawing is going fairly smoothly. Its really interesting to see how I fair with a project that I keep going back to time and time again. I dont think there has been any like that in my life. One thing I'm growing accustomed to is measuring and the different ways. Proportions, angles, lines, and characterization are all ways to judge an objects measurements. I still have a ways to go though. I noticed how I'm probably the one in class who did the least amount of life drawing. In my past, I did some but looking back now it was either from a photo or I just sort of guessed on the proportions (eyeball to see if it looked about right). I'm definitely thinking once this cast drawing is over, I will work on something similar to keep learning. 

Current Notan stage, separate light and darks. Shape under eye is not a dark.

feels like it... but its not.

Figure drawing is eating away at my time. It requires a lot of effort, but I wonder if thats me who is doing it. Each assignment is around 25 poses and it takes me about 6-8 hours to get that stuff done. I noticed during class many of the students use a more fluid line while mine are kind of scratchy (uncertain lines..... ones without clairty, makes stuff hard to read). I think my gesture is one of my greatest points, but I need to make my stuff easier to view. Since I became self conscious of what I drew during class. That too is a problem. My confidence in myself is one thing... confidence in my art is another but they both seem to have roots connected with one another.

I know a lot have this issue as well where you dont like the work you do. Yet, I feel my condition eats away at me and does not help AT ALL. I will try to work on it. Its definitely a hard one and something that I've faced all the time.

Torso studies.

Each pose takes about 10-20 min.

Light and form class is alright. Its hard to just get cracking on this egg. I feel like I need to be in the mind set. Crit from Dorian was that its fuzzy, bad reflected light and overall lots of noise. Heh... all those seem like things that plague my drawings from the beginning. I remember with Figure 1 Jane talked about how my edges werent alway the best and the reflected light destroyed a lot of my stuff. I DID however get some good advice from Dorian in cast drawing (its awesome having him in both classes... I feel I can ask questions easier when its less people). Basically, he confirmed squint and dont focus on shadow side. BUT, its good to REALLLY step back. I did that a few times when I was "finished" and started to realize mistakes so I went back. I'll make a habit to do that often now. The other is focus on an area outside and use peripheral vision to see. Just doing that now, I noticed a few stuff.

This egg is just a mini version of the cast drawing.

Media class had us doing an ink master copy over break. I choose Frank Frazetta because I definitely find myself going back to the guy when it comes to a lot in my art. First I have to say I learned a lot doing this. I dont think it was as good as many in my class thought it was. I enjoy praise when I feel its worth it, but this was just copying. Also... I think the web version lowers the mistakes that I see when looking at the thing in real life.

So I want to do more of these. I dont know if I will have the chance during this semester...I blame figure drawing and anime central. However, I have a couple of images lined up. Thanks to George Pratt I got lots of high quality images to work from. The second thing was my inability to really control the lines as well as Frazetta did. I got it to work sometimes, other times I didn't. Inking in general is not my speciality but its something that I want to do be. I noticed you have to have a lot of experience to get the right pressure. Sometimes my hand felt like the brush or nib was barely touching to achieve the correct result. Now, the third thing was texture. Frazetta really made it feel legit, while I seemed to disregard how much he put into this. Overall though, it was successful to start doing this.

 

Took about 3 hours to sketch and 5 to ink. On strathmore drawing paper,

sumi ink, G-pen, sable #2 brush.

The final thing I'd like to state is that I am at the point where I KNOW I want to start comics (more specifically, storytelling). So there are two projects I want to work on starting this weekend. The first is writing a short story every week to get better at writing. This will allow me to flex my storytelling muscle so that during the summer I can get cracking on comics. The other thing is to start watch/reading stories (ie animation, comics, games, etc.) and study them closely every week. Just as I look toward masters of art to influence my skill, so should I look toward telling a story. I feel that if I keep doing this every week for a long period of time I will know if I'm gaining anything worthwhile. In the end its not how much I gain, but how much time I put into it compared to the results because who knows if the time can be better spent.

Semester 2 Week 5

I'm falling behind just a bit because I find scanning stuff to be a little troublesome. Its one of those things that does not take long but I push it off very easily. I really need to get on that this week. I have the time.

Honestly a lot of bland stuff. Studies studies studiesssss.

Skeletal structure still emphasized but I'm working on

muscles now.

Started the cast drawing! Its fun. Really chill.

Egg drawing. Similar to cast, but going a little quicker.

Semester 2 week 4

Media class was all about using what we learned about Fechin and applying it to our own portrait drawing. I used my brother as a  reference. After drawing this, I feel like I took a slightly poor reference. There was a bit of lost information along with hard angle and harsh values. I really had to go insane with this one. It did not help that I was staying up late to draw this. Heh, I remember how many times I just wanted to quit for the night because it was so much trouble. Then I'd come right back thinking I could fix it more. Overall, I am happy. It makes me want to draw more like this... but ink is next and I am excited.

6 hours. Graphite, Charcoal pencil, Charkole stick,

strathmore drawing paper.

Figure drawing is figure drawing. Now with the understanding of the mannekin, we add in skeleton structure. This is where anatomy class from last semester comes in handy. It took a little refreshing to get back in gear. I really have not drawn much of the skeletal structure since then. So now the biggest thing to work on is getting the right shapes and less uncertaintiy. It plagues me to death how scratchy my drawings are. I think if there is one thing to come out of TAD, it's creating confident work.

Draw draw draw. The milage of drawing is emphasized in Ron's teachings.

Cast drawing class is always enlightening it seems. I got a fraction better at measuring as you can see with the first attempt. My second attempt was terrible. I wrecked my brain with the details. Simplifying could have helped the eye.  I might try to do another or some exercises to emphasize working on my measuring skills. However, a bit of my time will be to get the setup to its 100%.

Would have been better if I remembered the darks. 

So many bad things. I should just try it again. Hah except I will be seeing this

eye for a bit of a while.

Here are some value scales I did for Light&form and Cast drawing. They are pretty poor. Prettttyyy prettty poor. I saw so many in class do a  far better job. Whats worse? When I was drawing I thought they were pretty good. Maybe they just look better in person, but I doubt it. I will DEFINITELY redo these  over the weekend. Its very simple and something I need to master. I know a lot has to do with me barely using the pencil as a tool for shading. In general i've relied on photoshop for a long while.