Tasp's Sketchbook

#56

Glenn- Thanks for the useful information about drawing posture etc. I’m typically standing, or sitting with the pad about arm’s length away either on an easel or on a horse. I have yet to try conte crayons except for one time in class when someone let me borrow theirs. I enjoyed it though and will pick some up once I run through my current batch of art supplies.

A friend of mine recently gave me a book as a gift, it was Nicolaides “The Natural Way to Draw”. I have only read a little of it so far and am finding it very useful. While I am likely not going to be able to follow the lesson plans laid out in the book to the letter I am going to try and do something similar. Here are two “contour” drawings that I did today. Ideally these are supposed to be 30 minutes per drawing. But, even drawing as slowly as possible, I finished both of these at around 15 minutes each. I am going to make another attempt at this tonight and try to go even slower.

To explain these drawings- I have made these marks looking at the paper only when I started each line.This is why they look so strange, I am basically attempting to draw solely by observing the model and not my drawing. Nicolaides writes that the purpose of this type of drawing is to make you “feel” the model with your eyes and try to link your hand to your eye and that this type of drawing should be done “searchingly”.

As always any comments / critiques / encouragement is very welcome

#57

Tried another contour drawing last night, this one I managed to stretch out to 18 minutes, still not near the 30minute mark Nicolaides suggests. I may try his suggestion of drawing with my right hand to slow myself down even more (I am left handed). I am finding these exercises extremely interesting because I feel like I am getting the perspective down pretty well. I’m also starting to feel like my hand is a little better at following what I’m seeing.

#58

Here are two more contour drawings, again looking at the page when I put the pencil down to start a line and not looking down until the line comes to an end and I have to start a new line.

#59

Good job and fascinating approach. I should try it too. If I’m not mistaking I see already an improvement in your “blind” drawings so keep doing it. Cheers!

#60

Thanks for the encouragement AbuAmir!

I’m onto the next block of Nicolaides’ lesson plan, which is part contour drawing part gesture. Here are my first batch of gesture drawings (30-45seconds each).

While this is keeping me rather busy I think I’m also going to look for another master copy to work on soon.

#61

Another 30 minutes worth of gesture today, I feel that a few of these are showing slight improvement.

#62

Delayed update,

20 minute contour drawing-

30 minutes of Gesture, I’ve been using posemaniacs, which is amazing and useful, but does seem to recycle images often. I’ve drawn some of these poses before, but I think the practice is still useful.

Another 20 minute contour drawing-

#63

Another batch of gestures and some quick sketches. I’m starting to explore drawing class options, I feel like I’m treading water and not practicing “smart”. The fact that I’m working a schedule that is keeping me from the figure drawing class I was attending has led me to explore other options for progressing. I’ve been looking at ateliers here in new york and continuing education classes and other life drawing classes as well as ClassicalArtOnline. If anyone out there familiar with New York City has any recommendations I’d love to hear them.

Then again, I suppose I could also just draw more!

#64

Looking good Tasp. And hey…better to tread water than to drown! We all go through periods where, for one reason or another, we’re not able to access our preferred routine practice. During those times those times I think the best (and only) thing to do is just keep drawing and not get discouraged :slight_smile: Your stuff is looking great.

Also, I meant to comment earlier…I’m really digging your blind contour drawings. I had a great teacher in high school that had us practice those, but sadly I haven’t tried it since. I’ve thought about trying it again tho. I was recently reading a really good biography of Rodin (who was an excellent draftsman in addition to his sculpture) and there was a bit about his art training in 19th century France. Apparently, the teacher that he said he learned the most from was really heavy on the “memory” drawing. He would have his students do blind contour drawings incessantly, and he would also do things like have them go to a museum and stare at a master painting all day, and then go home and try to draw the entire thing from memory. Rodin said that he learned more from these exercises than from anything else. I can see how it would provide great training for observational skills. I’ll have to try it! :slight_smile:

#65

Jabuhrer- Thank you for the encouragement! I am definitely not giving up, just voicing my current concerns that I am on a plateau, skill wise. I’m definitely going to continue to tread water until I learn to swim better. I haven’t been posting as of late, I loaned out my camera to a friend last week and just got it back. I have been drawing a little more than usual this last week. Throwing myself into it as it were to help myself get re-motivated. I’ve been doing a ton of gestural and quick sketching but I don’t feel that there’s been much progress on that front. So here is another batch of blind contour drawings-

#66

So I’ve been sketching daily, doing doodles an anatomy work. I haven’t produced anything I’m happy with in a while, though I suppose that’s a good thing because it will keep me working on it. Here are a few sketches from the last few days, any ideas on how I can fix my problems with proportions would be greatly appreciated. I’ve been trying do a few quick sketches of my reference before getting started in earnest and using my pencil to try to see how the angles are.

Made the head too big and the arm in the background is also too large in this one. I tried to go ahead and do some shading on it anyway, didn’t get to the face-

This one is by far the best sketch I’ve done lately, and it took me 30 minutes to get it to this point. I am going to try and shade it despite the fact that it’s still not positioned properly. I’m enjoying china markers, the lack of erasing makes me put down each line with certainty.

#67

Recent master studies from the anatomy series…

I’m definitely going to start laying in lines for the eyes and other major features, I already try to do this, but I’m going to have to start being a lot more careful with it. The eyes on this one are horribly mis-aligned.

Another master copy, messed up the neck on this one, still issues with the eye alignment but I feel like I got closer to capturing the feel of this piece than the one above

This last one is a series of practice sketches, before attempting this master copy in earnest. Its from the torso anatomy series. I’m trying to properly catch both the hunched curve of the shoulders as the arm comes across twisting the torso, and the slouch of the shoulder in the foreground being lower than the one we can’t see in the background. None of these three properly show the posture, but I feel like the practice is helping me understand the pose more and get closer to what it actually is. I’m going to keep trying this until I get it right.

Critiques or suggestions always welcome.

#68

Two recent drawings

[edit] Forgot to mention I found both of the references for these images in the master copy threads on the anatomy forums.

#69

Another master copy attempt this one from Caravaggio,

#70

This is from my daily practice. It turned out to be something I’m quite pleased with despite having some issues that need more work

#71

I’ve been working on a male body in Zbrush, it has a long way to go but this is what I have so far-

#72

Recent Sketches, I’m trying to keep in mind the concepts from Michael Mattesi’s Book “Force”-

#73

Been a while, haven’t made anything I’ve been happy with as of late but I’m still drawing, these are a few recent ones-

I’ve noticed I need to work on my heads when doing gesture-

Blind Contour Study- 10 minutes

15 minute study-

And two images with no reference from imagination-

#74

#75

It’s been a while, here is some stuff:

From about a month ago-

Two weeks ago

And today

I’ve been using a leadholder to draw with lately, I really, really enjoy it. It gives me a constant sized tool to work with and I can use large graphite, charcoal or even china markers in them.