[Christopher]

Day 12

More perspective and I now got questions about two specific diagrams but since most questions got answered in later diagrams I’ll wait and trust in Erik Olson’s teaching 👍

[Christopher]

@Deborah

Thank you for your encouragement and yes that’s something I like about this forum too. Posts on many other platforms start for example with something like “portait drawn by me – tell me if you like it and follow me on IG: xyz”

Here you got so many different people sharing not only their finished work but also their wip and progress which motivates others to ask how somebody achieved the seen improvement.

About the measuring,

Yeah I only got a tiny wooden cube and I still don’t really enjoy the whole measuring process but if so many resources say it’s important to use measuring to improve your observation skills I as beginner/intermediate beginner think that I should trust the more experienced artists, so I guess I have to torture myself a little bit longer 😅😭

@Jean

Thank you,

and yes even if it’s often boring right now I’m really curious to see where I end up after the 100 days. I only whish I had done any kind of finished piece beforehand to compare to after the challenge 😅

Days 10 & 11

So after a few days without perspective the next days or even week will be perspective heavy. Since I finished chapter 2 I revisit every diagram, reorder them and do my own version for my perspective notebook. That will take some time. I did the same for chapter 1 but that was right before the challenge.

It’s kind of repetitive doing it twice but I really want to ingrain the information into my brain 😅

[Christopher]

Hi Jean,

I really like the second one especially the type of rendering with all those lost edges and the face being the clear focal point since it’s rendered the most.

I also like how you worked the edges but I’m not quite sure if it might look a bit to rounded since the cheek and jaw bones seem to be really dominant a more angular or sharper edge style could have been more suitable but I’m not sure about that.

Lastly even if I like the big out of focus shapes I think the hair could have a tiny bit more value variation. Your last picture has the same effect which makes them kind of look like framed masks, at least to me 😅

But I think you are on a good way and I really like your overall approach of rendering 👍

[Christopher]

Hi Deborah,

I always enjoy looking at structural drawings/approaches. On this one I especially like the nose since you can really see how you approach/interpret the planes of the nose.

Additionally it’s interesting to see a hint of perspective usage since you told me that you also follow the perspective course in the background. I really like the course and find it to be enlightening but also difficult to work out for yourself how to actually apply the information.

So it’s nice to see that you are already practising how to use perspective for your work 👍

[Christopher]

Day 9.

Day 9 was a bit unfortunate but since I didn’t wanted to do nothing I at least filled three small din a4 pages with more simple forms.

[Christopher]

Day 8.

In the moment my focus is on getting clean looking lines and forms. I don’t know why but I find it to be frustrating that the lines and curves look good while doing the excercises but as soon as I draw objects like forms, therefore the lines having a purpose, my linework gets really ugly and unconfident. Further do I find it really difficult to darken lightly drawn curves and ellipses.

The next “problem” are the cubes drawn from observation. I don’t know if it’s because I’m sitting or because the cube is below my eyeline but the top planes of my cubes always end up being narrower than what is in front of me. Also if transferring angles to the bottom of my page the angles seem to get “distorted”. If for example one angle is pointing up from left to right it’s sometimes the opposite if holding the needles against the bottom of my page. But since I use a tabletop easel my viewing angle is perpendicular.

That’s in summary what I need to work on if someone has or had similar experiences and therefore might have a excercise or hint that would be nice 😅👍

[Christopher]

That even more looks like some heavy perspective usage 😅

Are the planes created inside the box related to the proportions of the human head? I think I see the mid line on the front as eye line and I see the 3rds (brow, nose and chin).

I’m only familiar starting with a sphere do you start with a random box and start dividing from there or are you starting with a same sized square for a front plane? Since I can’t see a 45 degree division/line I would say it’s a random box.

Even if I’m completely wrong at least your method is good to test my new learned knowledge from the perspective course 😅👍

[Christopher]

It kind of looks similar to what industrial or product designer learn/do in terms of mirroring and relating to planes. It’s just not easy to see since there aren’t that many guidelines. I assume that’s the result of getting comfortable with those principles 😅👍

[Christopher]

Thanks Deborah,

and yes it is difficult. I always find myself thinking that I’m not doing enough especially considering some of you doing whole studies + things that you don’t even see in the challenge threads. I just can’t believe that such simple exercises take so much time for me 😅

Day 7.

Not that these would be more interesting to look at but finally a bit more form pages. It’s pretty difficult to stay patient if you progress so slowly through this courses and therefore don’t have any subject matter to draw for so many days. As I said I was thinking of maybe adding the beginner head drawing course into the mix. But I’m still not convinced that this is a good idea if it’s already taking so much time to work through the current courses …

[Christopher]

Day 6.

As usual some perspective some dexterity excercises and some form practise from the beginner course.

I might consider to reduce the dexterity excercises to one page per day or otherwise working through the courses will continue to be so slow.

[Christopher]

On one hand it’s annoying if your post’s don’t show up because of this spam filter system but on the other hand it’s quite entertaining to see when your posts come back from wherever. I mean I did this day 2. post like 3 days ago and now it got approved and I can’t even delete it 🤣

—–

Day 5.

Yesterday I did exactly what I said for days 4 post in terms of doing two excercises of the four as weakness chosen things. Additionally as usual at least one perspective diagram and I followed along on the first form lesson of the beginners course.

So I’m slowly moving towards doing more interesting stuff to look at. Just be patient I have to be too 😅

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by Christopher.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by Christopher.

[Christopher]

Hi and welcome Mariano,

yeah that’s true there are many other great resources to learn art but not many of them have such a big group of professional artist’s in one place. I myself haven’t really touched any paint yet and I’m still figureing out the drawing part. So it must be exciting to start the “second path” in your journey.

[Christopher]

Hello Deborah,

the line work of your last WiP looks really clean and accurate! Is that done just by eye or also measured with pencil/needles like explained in some of the NMA courses?

Besides that the shading of your last post looks really promising. Just the range of value might be to low. If I remember correctly you already said that you find it difficult to get dark values with graphite. I for myself also use graphite from Faber-Castell and since I’m still practising alot I mostly use any cheap paper I can get. So because I stuck with my pencils and used so many different types of paper I found the paper makes the biggest impact on not only how dark you can get but also how smooth it will look without smearing.

Anyway keep it up I’m interested to see how it will look finished 👍

[Christopher]

Hey Aj 👋,

I don’t know if it is because it’s a copie but I think your shading got better. Seems to be a great idea to studie those masters and see how they have done it.

I can’t wait to see how that will influence your work 👍

[Christopher]

Ah I see, I really like the skulls  in profile and 3/4 view on the right. And yes that was exactly what I meant, just keep experimenting to keep things fresh and fun 👍

[Author]

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