Dana’s 100 Day Challenge: Realism

[Dana Smith]

My goal is to draw for at least 15 minutes a day, focusing on accuracy of form. I’m coming back to fine art after a long break, so I’d like to establish a consistent practice.

I’ve just completed the 2nd lesson of the Sight Size workshop, which is a great place to begin! I took a few passes at the plate I chose – getting the top, middle, bottom, and center lines, then a couple tries working through the motion lines, and then refining the shapes and main shadows. (This ended up taking a couple hours.) I’ll come back tomorrow to make more refinements to the proportions, and start to lightly define the shadows. I’m finding it tricky to decide where to place a line for areas where the light/shadow border is a wide/diffuse gradient. (My cat has enjoyed me using the plumbline, haha.) CC welcome!

• This topic was modified 4 years ago by Dana Smith.

[Joshua Jacobo]

Nice. Great challenge. I look forward to seeing more!

[Josseline Jeria]

Hi Dana and welcome. Real good challenge you’ve set for yourself. Setting a focus will help with direction too throughout the challenge.  Great start with this drawing. I’d like to learn sight size sometime. Have you done any of the Sight size course on here?

[Birgith Schei]

Nice work. I have drawn these as well. It looks very easy before you start, but takes some time to finish if you want to get them equal.

[Dana Smith]

This is my first time using Procreate for anything ‘serious’, and I’m really liking it. I want to fine tune the touch sensitivity, as I’m getting marks that are either too light or too dark without much in between. However, the ability to undo without having to scrub an eraser is fantastic for these kinds of exercises where I make a lot of marks that I immediately see are wrong and want to change, haha.

[Dana Smith]

Thanks, Joshua!

Josseline, Yes! I’ve done the first two sight size lessons here, and I recommend them highly so far.

Birgith, I agree. This one took me 3 or 4 hours; Most of that time was getting the initial sketch proportions and angles correct. It was tiring at the time, but I’m glad I stuck with it, as I spent much less time making adjustments later, so the drawing overall felt easier than usual.

[Dennis]

Looks great! I too am attempting to use Procreate rather than paper for my daily challenge. I think it will take a few days to find the right brush and workflow.

Well done!

[999999999z]

Nicely done. I am on going sight-size in this challenge too. Good job.

[Dana Smith]

Thanks, Dennis and 999999999z, :-). I agree, it will take some time to find a workflow in Procreate; I’m already seeing things speeding up after just a couple days.

Today I watched 90 minutes of Lesson 3 of Sight-Size, and took some notes. Hope to start a second plate tomorrow.

 

[Dana Smith]

I had one of those days where I just didn’t feel like drawing. 😉 But I managed to get myself to quickly block out a new subject (my cat), to work on between the bargue plate assignments. I also watched another hour of the sight-size lesson.

[Josseline Jeria]

Well done for pushing through and getting some drawing in. I felt that way yesterday, but I feel so much better. Overcoming is part of process. Looking forward to seeing the cat develop 🙂

[PaulDidier]

Yes, plowing ahead when you don’t feel like doing it is what makes us grow. Good job! Nice cat, by the way. I have two who are generally sitting under my drafting light next to my desk.

[Dana Smith]

When I saw my cat sketch with fresh eyes today, it was way too wide, so I started a new one. All of this re-doing to get things right is helpful to not get too invested in early work. Finished lesson 3 of sight-size, and working up some momentum to start the first assignment from that. In meantime, here’s the new cat sketch of Maple (my mischievous cat who chewed through my plumbline yesterday, ha!)

[Josseline Jeria]

I see what you mean with the proportions. I think the second one is better. But not sure why, the first one reads, at least to me, more characteristic of the cat than the second one. I think it’s just the eyes as the first one immediately you can see the flat shape that looks like the cat, whereas the second one there is more construction breakdown. Looking forward to seeing this cute cat unfold 🙂

[André Girão Tauffer]

Wow, amazing details in that foot! Also loved that you just restarted your cat drawing from scratch. It’s something I should learn too! Looking forward to where you’ll get to with the new cat drawing! I’ll use it as inspiration to paint my cat sometime soon!

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