Hey class, welcome back. Today we're
going to run the class a little differently. We’re actually going to be working from photo
references. It will allow me to give me a little
more time, you know, to go a little more in depth with some of the process
and also, you know, show you guys how I will practice at home
at my own convenience either my home or studio. So let’s get
to the drawing board, let me show you guys how to do that.

Welcome back and we’re gonna do our class
a little differently this week. We’re gonna actually work from photo references and
actually, you know, in my own spare time
working on photo reference a lot at home or in my studio just to
you know to
keep and maintain that consistency of
drawing
a lot on site. So I’m gonna be showing you guys how I, you know,
how I - my process drawing from reference and I also
select some images from just kinda a regular street outfit
so I can also kinda help to simulate if you guys are drawing from
on location. I think one of the benefits
of drawing from photo reference is there is no time restrictions
and not like you’re drawing from a
studio or workshop situation, a lot of times you have
time limitations and you start rushing and
it ends up you’re drawing over kind of half way
and actually a lot of my demo they just kind of - they never - they’re just kind of
halfway done because first of all it’s challenging to draw
and talk at the same time, it actually slows me down as you can see
plus that
the benefit of drawing from photo reference is that
the models - from the studio situations, the model won’t move on you.
Right? So that’s a good thing sometimes
I’m pretty sure you guys will have experience with a model that's
moving a lot and that can be
a major problem for
getting things right.
(drawing)
Right now I’m doing just kind of the outline and highlights
When you’re drawing
in this case, somewhat the costume he has
is this pirate-ish outfit and you got the
head and, you know, you still need to ask yourself which
what you need to exaggerate. Which part of the character you want to push.
For example do I want to make this head bigger or this head.
If I make this head larger will that kind of benefit the story, benefit
you know the character itself
what will happen if you make the head smaller, is that going to be a different, you know,
a totally different take on it? So you need to have that in your head
it will help you to make your decisions.
(drawing)
One of the things about drawing from a photo, that can be
a good thing is that the photo tends to, you know, flatten
the image for you. What that means is
that the image itself really looks more graphic
in terms of shape wise and light and shadows separations
seems more clear than if you draw from the studio situation
because a lot of the times
when you draw from the studio there are, you know,
filter light or fluorescent light, whatever. There’s all this light
filtering into the model, it actually gets hard to read
the - sometimes it can get hard to read the
light and dark separations.
(drawing)
Make each shape unique, make each shape
dance, make each shape relates to other shapes.
(drawing)
And you notice I shade
the stroke itself might seem fast, but notice I don't
shade that fast. I make sure my shading and my strokes are consistent
because I do think graphically
see this whole thing basically I pretty much outlined this shape
and I just kind of fill it in. So your whole idea is filling
this, you know, this shape in here, it doesn’t matter how you
apply the strokes. I can go this way, I can go more
you know, more flat, more flat going horizontal.
But it doesn’t matter, the whole point is to just fill that whole space.
So your job basically is to
making sure that shape itself
proportion wise and
is this correct.
(drawing)
Sometimes I do need to, you know, to
shade it in so I can know, can find some identity and help to
separate - because there’s going to be a lot of things going on. I get confused
if I don’t, you know, if I don’t clarify them. And so
by darkening that wrist, this forearm helps me to
separation of the sleeve and the arm itself.
(drawing)
The gesture is running this way
like this. So this side of the vest is gonna start pulling out towards the right.
(drawing)
Sometimes you don’t have to outline, for example that striped
sleeve, that’s all I need. You know, you get
the energy, you get the separations,
of dark and light and
I think sometimes it looks more interesting this way.
Because you already had outlines here that
clarify that, you know, the fabric part of the sleeve.
Here we can just break that silhouette.
(drawing)
And here with the
cane and the
cross part
of his pants, they all kind of get lost. But I can see a few
little few highlights in there. So I’m just gonna circle them and just
to pick just, you know, just to select where those highlights are and
later I’ll make sure I don’t cover them.
And you probably want to do a little larger, you know, than you see it because
sometimes when you’re shading the ink will bleed through
and actually these highlights are smaller so I’m gonna draw a little bigger than I
see it. Sometimes what I like to do is
I call my comic book trick. I actually kinda bleep them in
regardless of what that is. I almost feel like it’s just a some type of
it helps the transition
blend in kind of harmonize my drawings.
It’s just something fun to do.
(drawing)
Keep in mind, your job is making each shape interesting, unique.
And I play with this
design a little bit here. First of all I want to make sure
that there’s no
like tension or things like that. If you look at
the photo itself, you know,
there’s a waistband actually sits below this bow here.
And I’m actually making it behind to help to bring this
out and also have a
better - like give a better separation that way.
(drawing)
I think what - I mentioned this before, one of my
favorite ink artists
well actually
he’s not doing it with the ink
he’s basically doing etching is by Anders Zorn
Z-O-R-N, last name.
Anders Zorn, he’s a Swedish artist. He’s one of my top
favorite painters, he’s top on my list. Go check
out his etchings, it’s amazing.
I study him the way he’s, you know, the way
he cross hatches, the way he shades, it just
it creates a sense of illusion, sense of depth
and sense of light, which is
right on, which is beautiful. It's
different than some other ink artists that I mentioned to you guys
before, like you know, Charles Dana Gibson
or Frank Frazetta, it’s even
you know, it has even more sense of this luminosity to this
work. You guys definitely should check it out. Anders Zorn.
(drawing)
I purposefully made this lighter because I know that’s where my light source is.
(drawing)
See by this time if I’m drawing from a model the time probably would be up and
you know you don’t have to rush it or I just
get it done. From photo reference you have all the time in the world
that you can really study.
you know to make sure
that you are really gonna be honest with yourself
you know, slow it down and really learn form
what you do here.
I have partially this is my first drawing of the day so I’m still not quite warmed up so that takes
a little more, you know, you should be a little more
careful and slow it down a little bit.
(drawing)
When you draw this part, like the end of the pants
even though this part is an ellipse and
don’t draw a - make sure that ellipse
has an axis to it. So to me
his foot, you can see his foot is facing this way. So what you should do is
you need to find that - give an apex.
(drawing)
Do the ellipse a little bit this way, almost looks like a slightly coned shape
to it. See?
Like this.
(drawing)
Leave some places open.
(drawing)
And then some of your guys
probably drawing along with me and that’s great.
You know it’s like
(drawing)
drawing along with me to kind of get
probably some of what I was talking about here
probably make more sense if you draw along with me.
If not, it’s okay. You can
just watch and when you have the time
and make sure you still make the
effort to practice.
(drawing)
All here - see this is what I’m gonna do,
I’m gonna kinda glaze a dark
over the whole thing because that’s all in shadows
(drawing)
Cast shadow on the ground. Again partially composition
purpose. And also get a sense of where that ground plane is.
But mostly it has to do with
composition. How I want, you know, the whole shape
has that completeness, how you eye is gonna flow.
See I wanna break that silhouette,
I’m gonna bring some of that
the ends of the scarf coming down breaks up
that silhouette of the pants.
(drawing)
Okay.

Okay so let’s
so we got this image he's
someone profile but then he’s turning his
upper torso more towards us, more in his feet
is going away from us. So you get this.- naturally you got this
kinda S curve composition to it.
(drawing)
I already get a sense of how this hair wraps behind his head\
so even though I’m drawing a graphic shape
at the same time it’s an organic graphic shape, it’s wider here, narrower
here, and you would never rarely see me drawing anything at the same scale
same size as that. I think I mentioned that several times. And
because that has no sense of direction.
And this does, right,
this is more or less like an arrow and an arrow
points to, you know, it gives you a direction that points to.
So we want most likely we want to do this
and vertically, horizontally, even a twist. And this something might be a
good exercise you guys want to do at home, you know, able to comfortably
draw a twist. And this twist idea happens
very often on the figure, means nude,
on muscles and
obviously in draperies, in costumes, in clothes that happens all the time.
So really get practice
we’re talking about torso, we know torso twists often and
what’s that mean in this case like
you could be like just say.
(drawing)
Torso facing - upper torso facing this way,
and then we got the lower part and start to
coming toward us.
(drawing)
See how that twisting of that.
If you look at Michelangelo, all those Renaissance
guys, they love to do that. Almost every
Michelangelo’s drawings, he always has some type
of twist or contrapposto, which means one
side’s stretched, one side’s pinched.
So that's
how you form works too. When you supinate and when you pronate you will turn
your arm you actually act the same as this.
And actually
your eye socket, the top portion of your eye
your eye socket, the top portion of your eye
lid also looks like this.
Let me show you a quick example.
Often right next to the keystone
you often are going to get a shadow that looks like this.
The keystone is between the eyebrow, which
(drawing)
that's
the keystone, that’s your eyebrow line. Often what you see is you see
this V shape, that expand, that swings out
goes to your eyebrow line and you got a little moment of a square shape,
a little square right here. And then the nose takes off and it goes wider
towards the bottom. So that’s
why often we see a three quarter view
(drawing)
to like looking from below.
(drawing)
See how you got this, straight, and then it comes out
(drawing)
Here’s the forehead and then
what I was going to talk about, the twisting part is
actually right here. See if I extend this box
if I close it, you see how this is
the inner part and then it swings out?
(drawing)
See how this sits right in there? Same thing. So what that is
that’s your inner, your heights of your
keystone. That’s the keystone. So what this is is the depth
which is if I extend this
(drawing)
Now where this ends is gonna become
the beginning of the base of the nose.
(drawing)
So now you got the top, you got the side,
and then you got that edge connect onto the face.
(drawing)
So here, like I said,
very quickly it’s gonna turn and here’s your eye line
is gonna swing down like this, like what I showed you that twisting shape
and
then your eyeball, your eye tear duct is gonna line up roughly
about where the wing of the nose and then your eyebrow just sits right in here.
(drawing)
And then end of this plane, which is
the end of this forehead is gonna sit right above in the middle of the eyes.
(drawing)
Kinda get a little more in depth to it. This base of the nose right here actually
is gonna flare out. It’s gonna hug around the eye ball, so it’s gonna
do this and then come back in.
(drawing)
So you can see here’s the keystone, this part right here, it’s actually
it’s the down facing plane so usually actually it gets a little bit darker.
(drawing)
This right here, you know, draw a line down and
here’s the philtrum and then
usually what I’ll do is I’ll get a sense of a ball which is a muzzle on
right below the nose, right here, and that’s where
your mouth is gonna be.
(drawing)
At this point - well let me - so here’s the chin
box right here.
And I can take a line from this point, we can
shoot right toward - well we can shoot right toward the corner of the chin box or
we can shoot towards a corner of the lips. It depends on the person,
you had more protruding muzzle, which
someone who has more
like protruding muzzle out like this,
(drawing)
you know, towards the corner of the mouth.
Either way the shadows on the face is a stair steps.
Stair step back, step forward,
(drawing)
step back,
step forward,
(drawing)
Right and then if you - this is the widest point of the face is
where the cheekbones are. It’s called the zygomatic arch,
take that kinda wide point, extend to the other side.
This is all perspective.
Probably gonna see partially on the other side and then gonna come back
behind the mouth.
(drawing)
So either this can come down to the corner of the lips or
come down to the chin box.
(drawing)
You know I’m kinda side tracked a little bit but I just think these are important information
that you guys need to know
I think I have, you know, in the head series
videos up at the New Masters Academy you guys
can - if you guy’s are a subscriber there’s more in-depth about head. The problem
is you guys have probably seen me, every time when I sketch a spend a little more time
on my head because I do not want to screw up, I think nobody wants to
because when you draw a figure guess where people are going to look at first? They’re gonna look at your face.
You want to get to the point you feel pretty comfortable with and
so you’re able to, you know, you can put that complication of a head drawing
aside so you’re able to move on and get to the
fun part. A lot of times the dress
or costume is a little bit more abstract. The other thing is
if you messed up a little bit you can still kind of
disguise it but the faces, the part that has more figure showing
they involve more of accuracy and more involved
in accurate proportions. And so, you know,
so you really want to, you know, spend some time to learn
head drawing hopefully to the point that you are able to draw heads
just a mannequin head like this in any given perspective
out of your head. Right, you should
kinda practice that if you can't.
Another thing is this kind of relates to that pose right there. If you look at, again, look at my eyebrow.
Let me go back - let me redraw this face
to show you we’re looking at the top of this head.
Let me do it right here. We’re looking at the top of
this head so.
(drawing)
So we are looking at something like this
right? And then that’s where is his eyebrow is curving like that
around perspective.
and his eyes also here, the other eye
is right here and just his cheekbones
and his nose protrudes out.
(drawing)
Right? So if you actually if you look at the
forehead
it turns quite quickly.
Right.
This is just an example of a more blocky idea of a head.
But the forehead doesn’t last that long. It doesn’t really last that long. Otherwise you get
this very wide forehead. Actually the front
plane of the forehead only lasts about where your center of your eyes. Sometimes can be
can only last the width of your keystone.
So either way you can use the keystone - width of the keystone or width of your eye
whatever, you know, you feel comfortable with. And everything
beyond that, it turns into a corner plane. And then
besides that is the side plane. So you see how quickly the forehead
turns.
(drawing)
So this has to turn much quicker. So ends up where you’re looking at
more accurately
(drawing)
You see?
Front, corner, side.
It turns really much quicker.
(drawing)
Look at the bottom of the head, make sure you include the bottom of the chin or jaw.
(drawing)
How that connects to the front of the neck.
(drawing)
The corner of the jaw sits about
bottom of the lips or it can be close to where the lips - that’s an important
landmark. The ear kind of sits between the
eyes and the nose.
(drawing)
The eyes we probably already know sits about halfway on the head. So I’m gonna
extend that forehead.
extend that forehead.
(drawing)
Okay so
make sure
practice, okay, and
it’s something that you really have to spend the time
drawing from photo reference. Taking photo reference, turn it into a blocky
kind of plane of the head like this. I used to take a -
I do that with the figure too, I take photo reference books, like the model photo reference books
I lay tracing paper over it and then I just try to break
down the planes, break down the structures like this, you know, throughout the whole
figure. Okay. So let’s get back
to that last drawing and actually
probably will make more sense when I’m drawing - doing the
head for the next drawing.
(drawing)
That right there, now you guys know
what that is, right? It’s that shadow from the keystone
(drawing)
This side higher, this side lower. The ear goes back, I can’t see the ear, but you
can definitely see the shadow that also I just showed you guys.
(drawing)
Kinda sit back and you
got white cheek right here, which is in light, and then it swings forward really quick
to the, you know, to the side plane
of the cheek.
(drawing)
Cast shadow
below the nose.
(drawing)
See how the head wraps around the other eyes
and I can just use this dark to silhouette, bring this
side of the contour out.
Bring the nose out.
(drawing)
If I want some type of rhythm, some type of flow, in this case gonna flow this way
(drawing)
All this is in shadow so I’m just gonna
drop this.
(drawing)
Like I said there were things falling down, things will come back up,
and things go left, things go right, so
my neck goes back.
(drawing)
That collar goes forward.
(drawing)
Diagonal relationships.
See? That’s where I’m gonna put my sleeve.
(drawing)
I want that black
jacket to be more dominant and so I would just keep this white shirt
just a light, you know, just keep a more delicate, lighter, almost just
a lighter silhouette. Because if I make this darker it's
gonna - might compete with that.
(drawing)
That’s gonna help to
relate to that white shirt.
(drawing)
I need that little darker shape right there, again,
helps for me to get that diagonal relationships
because next think you know, we notice the leg is gonna come forward like that.
(drawing)
I want to be aware of this negative space,
where I want that to be.
(drawing)
I’m gonna put it somewhat right here
so again it helps it to get a sense of that perspective
of the floor.
(drawing)
You can also kind of cheat at this. You want the pants to be
dropped, the pants dark, even though the can is dark too.
Just leave it light. Think of it doing a
like a Frank Miller comic book
you know what he would do to separate that light and
dark
patterns and he’s genius in doing
that.
(drawing)
Drop all this
ins shadows and then I can come back
put some of those stripes
on the shoes. All this I’m gonna just drop, you know, keep it in shadow.
So I can leave this light and then I can certainly turn this
dark.
(drawing)
Always checking my
balance.
(drawing)
That’s probably a little too high. Probably here this
edge is probably better.
(drawing)
Again my whole purpose is bring out that - I wanted to
kick out that hand by making the
that darker next to it, it helps me to do that.
If I wanted to I can also readjust the shape of the sleeve.
(drawing)

 
Okay guys I’m gonna -
I know this is not built into the
weekly outline but since I’m working on
photos today I’m actually able to show you guys another medium
which is the brush pen.
which is the brush pen.
Some of your guys might have experience with the brush pen
before. This is the type that you can put in ink yourself, so I have
this kind greenish color in here that I work
with and you can put pretty much any color you like.
And I also have a
brush pen, which I don’t have it today, it’s by
Pentel, which is a very popular one. It’s called Pentel pocked brush pen, that
works, you know, really well and you can
you know,
you can purchase that and it's the most difficult medium
of all the mediums that we have done because it's
so organic and it’s, you know, it’s trickier to
control so there’s different ways to do it. It’s a slightly different process to do it
and I will show you guys, you know, when I use the brush pen. And so
let’s start with this pose right here.
(drawing)
Different sort of approach is I can’t be too loose with
the brush pen, not like with fountain pen, not like with the ballpoint,
because every mark has to count, right?
It’s, you know, you can’t correct it, you can’t erase it, you can’t do anything about it so you have to make sure
you have to be a little more precise. And so my grip is going to be a little bit firm
because I’m afraid if I get loose and if
I make an unnecessary mark then I might screw up the whole thing.
(drawing)
I can tell I’m -
my strokes a little more firm
right so each mark I make
is a little more precise, a little more firm. I still try to
draw around it, still seeing shapes,
and then painted in.
So I don’t do much of the type of stuff.
See
more precise.
(drawing)
I still obviously
I’m still thinking about gesture, that’s always in my mind. Still thinking about looking
at the diagonal relationships.
Hopefully
if you guys see this I’m still concerned about, see this point, this point,
and this point. And also, going this way
that’s that kinda, you know, seeing as right now the technique
pretty much have to also be hyperfocused
on smaller, you know, small relationships. It’s hard for me
to perceive everything as a bigger whole now, so
still able to keep reminding myself, you know,
don’t get caught up with the small detail. What’s the overall shape and what's
the overall relationship. Maybe just within this section
and now I’ll move on.
So for example right now what I’m looking at is
this diagonal relationship. I know the gesture is gonna pull out
and then go all the way to his hand so I right now I’m gonna be
focusing on that.
(drawing)
I probably could have
curved this a little more. Let’s see, whatever.
Let me just do that. Later I’ll put this whole thing in shadow
and I can hopefully maybe disguise that.
(drawing)
And if we’re gonna make a mistake, like
all the mistakes we could make, make it too long. Make the arm a little too long
make the proportion a little too long
(drawing)
So I’m just gonna paint the same thing, I’m gonna paint this side of the vest darker first,
again it just helps me to read.
(drawing)
One of the benefits
you use this kind of
nasal type of brush pens, it can
create this water drop. And today if I want to be a little more
impressionist, I can even squeeze a lot and
then kinda let it drip and that kinda accidental drips
can be a fun texture.
(drawing)
When it dries it’s actually going to sits a little darker than what I put down before
so it creates this additional value.
(drawing)
This is gonna echo to this.
(drawing)
Obviously this is more, also more of a
painterly approach. Of course I’m using ink
so
but it still seeing as we’re not dealing with a full color palette
you know we’re still focusing on the value grouping
and, you know, shape design
balance of the pose and now using
more challenging mediums.
And that means, you know, that means
for both either you just have to really slow down
(drawing)
and, you know, like I said the error of the mistake is really
is
really narrow, you know, for this type of
technique and
once you get comfortable with it, like I said it can benefit
besides befitting your drawing skills, it can also benefit your paintings.
I paint watercolor, I will paint gouache and
watercolor kinda the same way that I paint, just difference
watercolor kinda the same way that I paint, just difference
is I use color.
And some is the same too at least for the blocking stage, you know, when you block in
light and dark, it’s kinda the same way. I can play
though maybe I put more thinner in my paint I can still
create this kinda drips.
For watercolor I can slowly glaze the darkness
onto it, you know, onto my paint you know to
bring subtly to bring the darkness
back up. For example again I can
somewhat like the marker. If I add more dark here
like I said later
that’s gonna seem lighter.
(drawing)
I got a chance to
meet a very well known watercolor artist
actually I got the priviledge
to actually do a workshop at my studio a few
years back, he’s a well known watercolor artist
and
I remember one thing
I remember he said in terms of watercolor, it’s more important
to know where to leave the
white part than actually than the dark.
And so you always want to have a little light, even though that
whole shoe - those boots are really dark, you still want to
leave subtle light within that boot.
(drawing)
You know find places that
(drawing)
to still have some of the light showing. Again I
can come back to glaze this down if I want to. I can come
back to make this darker for another layer because I do see shadow in here,
and then I glaze that down so that will feel
lighter but it’s still the darker pants and that will make this side look darker
once I wash over it.
(drawing)
I decided to make this a little almost like fade out
because I want to set this foot in the background so I wanted to
use more of this lighter value, lighter greens. So I didn't
squeeze too much paint in there and just, you know, so it can
allow you to sit back.
Refine some of my clarity.
(drawing)
Now also important about the negative space. I want to make sure
there’s that negative space
works well. If not I will adjust it. At this point it’s more about adjusting
because all pretty much the drawing is gonna be done. I ask myself does this section
look right, does it look clear, does it have a clear transition?
Does that compete with that, does this compete with that? So I still have some questions
I have to resolve.
(drawing)
Like I said earlier, I put like a wash, I’m gonna make it darker
(drawing)
I want that to
feel more graphic, sit that back a little more.
(drawing)
So thank you for your patience.
I know this is just something I can't
really rush through it but at least you can kind of
get the, you know, sense of my process
and
to be honest I haven’t used this medium for a while. I was a little
nervous to begin with but
I kinda liked how it turned out, that’s why now I can’t stop. But
like I said you can try it yourself and
sometimes this - I just want to break the silhouette a little bit.
You know it’s not on the reference I just, again I’m looking at the light and dark
relationships to see do they overall flow well.
But
I will need to stop here otherwise...
Okay hold on. This bothers me, I think
it’s just my eye just kinda stays there. So
I did that because I was trying to bring this vest
the end of the vest and then trying to merge that into the pants
or the shadows but now I created this hard edge here. So let’s see if I can
(drawing)
break that.
(drawing)
Okay. So hopefully
you enjoyed this technique and then
try it out.
That’s how I, you know, do my sketches from photo references. Like I said
obviously I go a lot in depth about
you know breaking down the drawing process and also still
focusing some of the fundamental idea of the drawings but
with the photo reference, you have a lot of convenience, you know, you can
draw in your own studio, own time, and you can spend as much time as you want to learn
your craft, you know, to practice.