Drifting Embers

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...