Studies

Studying the shoulder girdle and the muscles attached to the scapula. Couple more attempts at composition design.

I am a very slow and inefficient person in life. It grates on me all the time. It annoyed me enough the other day that I completely analysed my workspace in Photoshop and streamlined it. Remapped a bunch of my tablet's keys. Learned how to auto-hide panels. Figured out where to put my keyboard while I'm painting so I can actually use keyboard hotkeys. Was amazed at how much time it shaved off.

I painted the arm to my art mannequin to try out the shading techniques I learned in the workshop I took last year. I think it took around 20-30 minutes.

I started doing value studies of paintings I like, kind of like this (Sargeant) and this (Giancola). I was mostly concerned with composition and looking at value masses and hard vs. soft/lost edges. Then I decided after every one or two I finish I will throw something together of my own for composition practise. This time was a waterfall.

Still working on anatomy. Tried drawing figures from photographs while thinking in terms of spheres. Drew my husband's back. Had no idea what I was looking at. Except for the arm, I knew the muscles there! Looks like my sketch smeared there though. Hmmph. I think some technical studies of the scapula area are in order.

I chose to study a photograph with a highly unnatural pose and fabric preventing me from discerning the back leg very well mainly because the arm and front leg were situated in a way that I did not have any muscle diagrams that matched. I wanted to try figuring out where they would be located.

When I drew the gesture, I drew the overlaps in the upper arms backwards because I didn't understand how the deltoid insertion moves with the arm. I also noticed one of my previous studies looks like I connected the iliotibial band to the femur instead of the tibia. Lots to learn.

Trying to get faster at doing quick sketches.

Gesture drawings and an attempt to visualise the muscles in a photograph of a male ballet dancer.

I have learned that a great way to get time for personal projects is to fall down the stairs and break your foot! I have been completely rewriting my webcomic script. I was also able to watch a Vilppu video on gesture. These are the most prodigiously counterintuitive drawings I have ever tried. You can tell me to "feel" the pull and "experience" the pose, and my brain is obliged to respond with complete blankness.

Drawing my hand.

I'm currently recovering from surgery. Feeling much better. It seems that my trick for ending up bed-ridden is to set any kind of drawing goals, as they've coincided for months.

Well, before all that I did a couple quick photograph studies. My husband had agreed to sit for me every night for half an hour or so and I drew him a few times. I think he's gorgeous, but his unusually large skull gives me a bit of trouble. I tried out Posemaniacs for gesture drawing, set to something around a minute per image. I did a Caravaggio study of a detail from The Calling of Saint Matthew.

Studied Richer diagrams to learn the leg muscles and then attempted to identify leg muscles in a photograph.

Started drawing again after visiting family for about a week. I took my Hamm book with me, although I didn't get much studying done. My father noticed my book sitting on the table. "That looks familiar," he said. He looked at the copyright date and started skimming through it. "My mother had this book." I had no idea my grandmother was interested in art. My father said he never saw her draw any figures. She seemed to be more interested in painting landscapes.

Unfortunately, I had to visit the doctor again for something unrelated to my previous health issues. I squeezed in a question about my heart and liver. He poked at me a bit and listened to my heart. They both seem perfectly normal now. Gluten really was doing some strange things to me.

Studies on leg structure (more Hamm copies) and attempts at constructing torsos.

Played with a couple of my new pencils to sketch at the beach and start learning the arm muscles. All these diagrams keep reminding me of my physiology course in high school. From what I recall, my favourite muscles were the tensor fasciae latae and the sternocleidomastoid, and the sole reason was that they were fun to say. There was also the day we got to go study the cadavers. The muscles looked more like cooked chicken - flat as far as shading goes, fibrous, and difficult to tell apart.

Also painted a picture as a form of stress relief.

Shoulders, arms, and tilting boxes. I bought some Derwent sketching pencils that are softer than the mechanical pencil I usually use. Haven't used them yet. My daughter got a hold of them while I was starting to sketch and tried drawing with them. They got all over her hands and shirt. Haha. Had to put them up for a bit.

I've started reading Andrew Loomis's Figure Drawing for All It's Worth and Richard Schmid's Alla Prima: Everything I Know About Painting. Still studying the Hamm book, played around with Loomis's mannequin idea, and worked with gesture drawings.

My husband was asking how long I anticipated my studies would take. I assume I'll be drawing studies until I die, even after managing professional level.

My goal is to become an excellent artist. I laugh a little at that statement. Given my natural talents and interests as a teenager, I was supposed to be a scientist. I hated art then. Boring stuff. I recall purposely arranging my school schedule one year in a way to be excused from the required art course.

Regardless, I developed this desire many years ago. I have wanted to use a visual medium to tell a story. The story itself has gone through entire rewrites and continues to fluctuate, but there is a certain core to it that has remained constant and is very important to me. I aim to, before I die, complete it in a graphic novel/webcomic form. The driftingembers.com domain is the future site for it.

I have attempted several times to begin the actual production of the comic, but I cannot seem to get through the first chapter before I come to the same conclusion each time: I am not currently satisfied with my skills in both writing and visual art.

Instead of constantly going back to the drawing board and leaving this site empty, I've started this blog to document my practice and to actually populate this space with something. I'm a little surprised at the decision, since I am not the sort to normally do such a thing. I'm socially awkward and don't like being very open in a public environment. 

So, my first image shows one of my first attempts many years ago at drawing anything. I keep it around for laughs.

I'm mostly "self-taught," though I dislike the term. We all learn from others, even if we don't pay for the lessons. A few months ago I was fortunate enough to participate in a workshop over at CGSociety.org taught by Robert Chang. It's called "Becoming a Better Artist." Wonderful experience and well worth the money. I've admired Rob's stuff for years, and he's one of the best teachers I've had. One of the books he suggested was Drawing the Head and Figure by Jack Hamm. It's an excellent book, and it makes me realise how lacking my understanding of anatomy is. I've started studying and copying many of the drawings in it, as well as studying sources elsewhere.

I have a bad habit of sketching too lightly, because I really hate how dark values will smudge and smear onto the facing page when you close your sketchbook. A friend suggested I use a spray fixative to seal it, so once I buy some I have no excuse for poor value ranges. Or I could just do all the sketching digitally...