[PaulDidier]

If by overhand technique you mean with the pencil going across your palm and held primarily by the thumb, middle and index figure, I find that’s the best way for me to draw loosely and get really elegant lines. Initially, you might find it difficult drawing small that way. It’s wonderful drawing or painting like that standing at an easel or with a drawing board resting on your thighs on a drawing bench. After a while though, with practice, you can draw that way on a small sketchbook. It’s a bit difficult to control initially though.

[PaulDidier]

This is nice! What size are you working?

[PaulDidier]

These are good! I especially like the line/contour drawings in the first one of the boxes and tissue. Those are really excellent. Also your gestures have already improved alot!  Your ellipses and boxes are all super good exercises.

 

[PaulDidier]

This is a great challenge Cecilia! One that I should do too. Appreciate you’re describing in detail the names of the bones. It will help me learn as I follow along with your progress.

[PaulDidier]

Hi Josseline,

Here’s another morning warmup that might interest you. I had no thought of posting this one so, of course, I was looser and I think it turned out better than yesterday’s. For this I just did each animal for 3 – 6 minutes and left it there rather than running the slideshow repeatedly. This is sharpies on 18 x 24 bond paper, (nicer than newsprint). Took pictures of these critters at the local zoo. I try to take hundreds of photos whenever I go, for sketching later like this. Sometimes animals are easier for me than people. No one notices if you get the likeness wrong of a mountain lion ; )

 

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by PaulDidier.

[PaulDidier]

Hi Lucas. Yeah, the perfectionist bug is a real dilemma. A certain amount of it is good to help us want to do better, but too much can really get us to be too self critical and we become discouraged. I’ve known artists who were the opposite and actually didn’t care at all about their work as long as they got paid for it. Easier on the nervous system but they didn’t seem to grow too much as artists either.

[PaulDidier]

Peihong, very cool stuff! I especially like your drawing of the pelvis. Good angle and it feels so solid. Nice Procreate study.

Don’t worry about posting twice. I’ve had that happen a few times. It’s hard to tell if your images are going to appear when it takes a while. I’m anxious to get my days work up each day so when the images don’t appear after a couple of hours I just post them again.

Thanks for the feedback on my work. I really appreciate it.

[PaulDidier]

Here’s today’s (Day 08) gouache studies;

[PaulDidier]

Hmmm, looks like stuff isn’t posting. I put two images up on teh same post and they didn’t appear. It seems like the forum doesn’t like multiple images on a single post.

I’ll try it again with separate uploads.

Here’s my gouache studies for day 08.

 

[PaulDidier]

It’s my pleasure Josselyn. We seem to have some perfectionist tendencies in common. It can really get in the way, not only of enjoying what you’re doing but, at least in my case, of doing my best. I always found that when warming up with my drawing and painting or, in tennis, just rallying, I hit better shots than when playing a game. Invariably when I was playing the game I’d tighten up and not do as well. The same with my art. So I’ve been working hard at relaxing and enjoying myself, which involves not “working hard” and tightening up. It’s a real catch-22 for me. I know many people don’t have this issue but I do.

One other comment. The way I do these warmups is different from when I do my more focused gestures. Those are the ones I’ve been posting before on the toned paper. In those, while still having fun, I’m paying more attention to proportion, contour, line quality, etc. If you look at Steve Huston’s “Life Drawing Demonstrations 1” he does some awesome quick sketches using sharpies, pens, charcoal etc. The Sharpie drawings begin about 7 minutes into chapter 2 and go all the way through chapter 3. Achieving this level of gesture drawings are what I’m striving for with the sketches I’m posting in my toned sketchbook pages.

Here’s a link to Steve’s video tutorial;

https://www.nma.art/videolessons/steve-huston-life-drawing-demonstrations-1/

[PaulDidier]

Nice how you’re seeing the shadows as graphic shapes!

[PaulDidier]

Wow, really like the face! You’ve really captured the subtle expression without overworking it!

[PaulDidier]

Finally, if I feel like it, I’ll go through the slideshow one more time. This time I spent about two minutes on each image. Nothing to brag about. It’s just a nice way to loosen up and get my eyes and brain awake and my blood flowing. At this point I’m often really excited to sit down and do some more careful drawing and rendering, paying attention to all the things I didn’t pay attention to while doing these.

 

 

[PaulDidier]

Here’s the second stage. I go back in the slideshow and go through it again, spending one minute on each figure. Again, not worrying about all the “rules” of drawing, but, of course trying to fix and refine things in the limited time I have but not worrying too much about it.

 

[PaulDidier]

Hi Josseline,

Here are the quick warmups I do using sharpies in the morning. Sometimes I’ll do animals, sometimes perspective, sometimes portraits.

The important thing I want to impress on you is these are NOT gestures the way many instructors emphasize doing them. These are first and foremost WARMUPS, to get my eyes and brain into a good place to start doing art. I’m pretty zoned in the morning. Doing these helps wake me up, (along with my cup of coffee and maybe a couple of chocolate covered espresso beans).

I compare this to doing warmups before playing basketball or tennis or some other activity. Instead of being preoccupied with all “do’s and don’ts” of drawing- line quality, shading, even proportion, (although I DO try to do them well while doing this, I just don’t see a mistake and stop and go, “Damn! I need to fix that before I go on!”), I just let it flow and try not to worry about any mistakes at the moment. When warming up for basketball it would be like just trying new movements without worrying if the ball goes in the basket every time, or in tennis just letting go while trying new serves to see what happens without worrying too much if the serve would have been in or not. You’re still hoping it goes in, but you don’t stop and critique yourself.

I’ve always tended to be a bit of a perfectionist, at least towards myself. I’d do a drawing or painting and people would compliment me on it, but all I would be able to see was the ellipse that was a little off, or the line that was too heavy-handed or too wimpy. I had a teacher once who finally asked me, “Wow Paul, do you ever ENJOY doing art? All you seem to do is look for something to criticize yourself about. You need to have fun! That’s how you improve, especially over years of doing something!” He was right.

So these warmups are really special times for me to just let go and have fun. I don’t usually post them or show them to people. They’re just for me.

Anyway, hope this helps. Your gestures look fine! Don’t be too critical of your efforts and have fun. Also, NO ONE doing this challenge is going to make fun of your efforts. We all know how hard it is. As Steve Huston says many times in his tutorials, “Art is hard!”

So here’s my warmup in the first stage. I’m working on an 18″ x 24″ sheet of newsprint. I downloaded some of the images of Rajiv, then made a slideshow with it set for 30 seconds for each image. I used a partially dry sharpie that leaves a lighter line and just went as fast as I could to capture the overall feel of the movement of the pose.

 

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