Ramona’s 100 Day Art Challenge: Figure Drawing

[Ramona]

Hello everyone! I’m new to NMA and just discovered the 100 days art challenge. Although I’m lately trying to be more active, I often find excuses not to draw. Hopefully, I can overcome my art laziness by participating in this challenge.

I have been drawing occasionally all my life, but never carved out the time to improve my skills, so I would classify myself as an advanced beginner. I’m mostly interested in the human figure and would therefore like to devote this drawing challenge to the human body.

So, basically my challenge is to sketch full body poses/ portraits everyday, whether it be with the help of timed poses or from imagination. Moreover, I want to utilize the video material provided on this website to gain insights into the art of figure drawing. I think I will stick to Steve Huston’s Beginning Figure Drawing classes.

My goal is to improve my observational skills to be able to capture human anatomy and the proportions better. Although these things are on my priority list, I hope that I can also improve my basic shading skills. At the same time, I think it’s important to challenge your mind set as well: even if the results will vary from day to day, I’ll try to stick with the challenge and except even the ‘bad drawings’ as a part of the progress.

I wish everyone good luck for their challenges and hope that you stay safe! 🙂

[Ramona]

So for day 1 I attempted to draw a few pages of gesture drawings, but they turned out a little bit messy :’) Thinking in curves can create a higher fluidity in the drawing, which I like, but I definitely have to revisit the single body parts for getting the anatomy right. I started watching instruction videos but haven’t made it to the assignment part of the first session yet,  so this will be my task for today! 

[Joshua Jacobo]

You have the right idea! These are working. I’d still recommend that you slow down and as you are making these fluid gestural mark. Look ahead and check: “where am I going?” “How wide is this?” “Where does this end in relation to that?” Ask yourself those kinds of questions as you feel your way through.

[Ramona]

First of all, thank you very much Joshua for your helpful feedback! I will definitely keep that in mind in the future!

Day 1 was actually done yesterday, so here is day 2 (today):

I finished the first batch of instruction videos and managed to draw a lot today. The assignment attached to the videos turned out pretty weird, because, honestly, I misunderstood the task at first. However, I could make first attempts to apply the simplification method to the human body in the end and did one more analytical drawing from a reference photo (right).

Here is a summary photograph of  today (as you can see, not every attempt works!):

[Josseline Jeria]

Hi Ramona, Great challenge you’ve set for yourself. I’m looking foward to watching your progress. I like the notes you’re making on perspective and tilt, both are very important for figure drawing. Understanding and looking for Overlapping of forms and thinking of the hidden forms for certain poses has helped me better attempt drawing them.

[Ramona]

Thank you for your comment Josseline, I actually tried to do a few pages of the overlapping forms today!

So far, I’m doing a little bit of here and there, so I decided to be more organized from now on. The next week will be devoted to the torso and the neck!

Here are a few pages for day 3, nothing special:

 

[Lucas a.k.a “Roams”]

good stuff ramona. keep up the work and ull get better pretty quickly 🙂

[Joshua Jacobo]

Only advice is to keep going right now. 🙏🏼

[Ramona]

Thanks Lucas and Joshua for your very encouraging words! Today was actually more busy and I didn’t feel like spending too much time on drawing, but after reading your comments, I felt more motivated! I’ve watched some videos about the construction of the head. I usually enjoy drawing heads, but I have difficulties to attach heads properly to the torso. Hope that I can tackle this in the next weeks!

So here’s day 4: Did a small master study of a Van Dyck portrait by the end of the day (the right one is based on a NMA photo reference)

[Ramona]

I really need to get rid of the habit to tackle this challenge in the middle of the night! I guess this challenge is really good to establish a daily drawing habit, but I need to find a better time for it. As I was sleepy, I have not done much, but I watched a video about the basic construction of the face and did a head from scratch with this advice.

 

So here’s day 5:

[Ramona]

Today I continued to watch some instruction videos and did two rounds of Croquis Cafe videos (head+torso focused).

It’s day 6 and today it was a little bit easier to grasp the anatomy compared to day 1:

[Joshua Jacobo]

Great work! As you progress start to think the shoulders as individually moving mechanisms on the top of the narrow top of the ribcage rather as connected like the top of the box. It will allow you to get more expressiveness out of these studies.

[Ramona]

Dear Joshua, thank you again for your very valuable advice! I really tried to pay more attention to this aspect today. One thing that I noticed is that I hear some facts about anatomy over and over,  but nevertheless do the mistake in my drawings until someone points it out. I really need to refine my observation skills to spot mistakes in the future.

 

Today, I managed to draw in the morning and the evening. Here are my attempts from the evening. One was based on a Michelangelo drawing, but I count that as a failed attempt. I think my line quality needs a little brush up and decided to add some basic drawing exercises to my daily routine from now on as well. Please forgive the noodle arms, I haven’t covered this topic yet 😀

Day 7:

[Joshua Jacobo]

You can know the anatomy but until you get into the habit of applying it, it’s not helpful. As you build your skills with mileage you’ll be able to push what you can accomplish in a drawing further and further. It’s almost like your brain has a processor speed and memory like a computer and as long as it’s spending all the resources on drawing tasks there’s less room for more advanced concepts. So the best thing is to keep what you’re doing. Keep drawing and all the advice being thrown at you will start to connect in time.

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by Joshua Jacobo.

[Ramona]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Joshua, mileage is indeed an important factor to strengthen ones skills. Today I tried to deepen the topic regarding the shoulder girdle and found a really helpful NMA resource by Glenn Vilppu. I watched some more anatomical explanations on youtube and tried to apply it on a 3D sculpture from different angles.

 

Here is day 8, some scribbles I did while watching the NMA resource and more attempts of the torso with shoulders:

 

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