- This topic has 174 replies, 19 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 7 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
For now I think I need to step back/stop for a bit so I’ll continue tomorrow …
Day 50
Online a few minutes of work. I further adjusted the values inside the shadows and started adding some of the mid tones.
Day 51
Nothing special today. I watched and rewatched some videos to further ingrain the particular informations/principles. Since I slowly develop a understanding of where I am currently (artistic journey wise) and therefore what I have to focus on in the next weeks I also got a clear picture in my mind of how I want my graphite and ink work to look. So I grabbed a few books and watched videos about ink today and did some dexterity stuff to build muscle memory.
I would have loved to do more or show something different but this kind of pages take more time than you would think. Especially if your focus is on slowing down and aiming for quality to build the right kind of muscle memory.
Hey Christopher,
I wanted to follow up on your comments… my skulls are kind of weird because they were actually sourced from the NMA model in full wide-angle lens mode which created a mild point perspective rather than a true parallel projection… kind of a cinematic effect. They were really just the product of a torrid first date with my fancy new pen and not a good model for an effective analysis of the skull.
It seems like my challenge is a little more calisthenic in nature while you are doing some regimented weight training… we would both benefit from trading workouts from time to time.
Some Advice…
First, you should revisit what Joshua told you on July 11th frequently and reflect upon what it means.
Second, I would refer you to Elizabeth’s drawings for the model of what you should be doing in your anatomical shading exercises… looks like you already found them.
I’ve observed some difficulty arising from these “slow down” continuous tone anatomical studies. People tend to deviate toward less confident and over abbreviated strokes… by the end of the drawing, many are working completely from their wrist.
Elizabeth’s mechanics appear properly dialed into her shoulder, elbow, and mid-section muscles as the rule and her wrist as the exception.
Eliminating my wrist was a subgoal of my challenge… even when we slow down, it never hurts to remind ourselves to be mindfully training the muscles that will work to our greatest advantage.
Keep up the great work!
First of all thank you for taking the time to write this and sorry about the skulls 😅 That’s exactly why I often shy away from giving critique myself as I don’t feel experienced enough to do so but I also didn’t wanted to always just say things like “great work, keep going”. I want to add something of value that ideally is helpful.
But in this case I had no clue the skulls were based on a wide angle view so sorry I didn’t wanted to sound rude my intention was to help.
Secondly I want to make sure I understood everything you said. So in my understanding calisthenics is a training based of bodyweight excercises so therefore hitting multiple muscles instead of just a specific one but I’m not sure if you mean (in terms of drawing) that I should work on a broader range of subjects/topics or fundamentals?
And I read Joshua’s comment again. Normally I would assume you meant i should do more from imagination/master studys but since you said I should reflect on what it means I’m not quite sure. Are you trying to say I should go back and forth more or faster or that what I’m doing now can’t be really considered as “putting it all together”?
I think I at least I got what you meant with your last point. I should focus on the right balance of time spent instead of hours spent on one skull if it’s about shading since it’s likely to fall into the trap of stiffening up and building bad habits/ignoring the previous learned like to draw from the shoulder.
Sorry if I’m wrong with everything. I don’t know if it’s my english but your text is kind of confusing to me. I think I kinda got it but also I’m not sure 🤣
But anyway I really appreciate such comments even if they might sound harsh. If I don’t know about it I can’t change it so thank you.
Hey Christopher,
I did not mean to be harsh… I am sorry if it felt that way.
I’m not implying that you are not heeding Joshua’s advice, I am asserting that the wisdom of his statement will resonate as your journey continues.
Put simply, when we push our boundaries, our perspective changes, and the basic exercises we return to present new opportunities.
The master studies are something everybody should be doing more of here. They are pursuits upon which failure is inevitable (and often embarrassing on the first few warmups) but they are also critical to gain a better understanding of design and technique. Unfortunately, nobody wants to post pictures of their failures.
IMO, the mortar of a solid foundation is best mixed with a ratio of 1 part success and 3 parts failure… if you’re not falling, you’re not skiing.
Thank you Ian!
I think I at least build two useful habits if it’s about what you are talking about. First since I already post everything I do from mundane line excercises to failed planar heads I’m already used to showing bad stuff. So I think for me it’s actually more difficult to choose which masters to study since I just don’t know much of them 😅 But that should luckily be a small problem since actually showing my “failure” doesn’t bother me that much.
Secondly since I already reflect upon my approach almost daily I definitely now what you mean. What I thought I would need yesterday could be completely different tomorrow. That’s actually one reason why I often revisit certain videos about basic principles from different teachers and therefore different point of views.
So I’ll definitely save Joshua’s words in the back of my head and I’m sure what it means to me will change from time to time.
Thank you again and I’ll definitely try to be more open and strive for failure instead of seeing it as something bad. Nobody is truly self taught everybody has the same teacher called failure 😅👋
Day 52
Another day of just playing around with my fountain pen. Because of what Ian said I might consider to start watching Steve Huston’s sketchbook course since it focuses more on exploring than improving and in that regard Ian is right, I haven’t done that yet.
I still need to finish the skull (which I needed some distance from) but if it’s done I’ll also try to follow Ian’s advice and do the shading of the following skulls alot quicker and more loosely. Hopefully that will make it more fun and less tiring since I probably need to draw a ton of skulls to feel confident with it’s forms.
Day 53
I think I’ll call the skull done. I’m really happy about certain parts of it looking much more 3D rendered than everything I’ve done before. But now I hit a point where I feel kind of lost not knowing what to do next. Also I just had no clue how to approach certain areas since I obviously don’t understand the forms and planes enough. Even if I like this softer rendering it makes the lack of knowledge more obvious so that these areas look really flat in my opinion.
I think the process I followed was ok and I hope I can improve it with more knowledge about the subject.
Since I got no clue what exactly went wrong I would really appreciate any kind of critique.
Day 54
Again sorry for the bad foto quality. In the moment I’m just mostly drawing in the evening …
First I just wanted to do a page of just warm up heads but then I felt the urge to look into Glenn Vilppu’s lectures which I haven’t done that much before. That stuff is so good I totally got lost in it but I’ll definitely need to revisit this regularly.
Day 55
Since I got such problems understanding certain areas of the skull I started analyzing the frontal bone today. I don’t know if it’s me or the quality of my old laptop but I still got trouble really seeing those form/plane changes. Ilya’s example drawings were a bit to blurry on my screen and while using the 3D model I rely more on the shadows to identify plane changes because otherwise it’s just difficult to see them if everything is so curved, especially the superciliary arch …
The last two interpretations (bottom right) ended up being a mixture of Ilya’s examples, the 3d skull and the Vilppu planes and I got no clue if that is even near to being “right” ..
Day 56
More frontal bone studies. I still got no clue how accurate these are but I’ll hope to get a better grasp of the brow ridge as a whole soon.
CONNECT
New Masters Academy
16182 Gothard St
Huntington Beach, CA 92647
Contact US