Sketchy Saturday: Breakthroughs

I somehow slipped into an impromptu hiatus, quite possibly to mentally recharge for some upcoming challenges. Regardless of the reason or excuse, I am back to drawing!

I finally cracked open Michael Hampton's Figure Drawing: Design and Invention last night to read the first chapter on gestures. How can something so simple such as only using curved lines instead of straight never occur to me, I do not know. Today ended up being the happiest with life drawing I have been in a while because of something so simple!

I'm quite excited to see what other aspects from his book I will pick up. What's great about drawing is that regardless of who you study with or what books you read, the mixture of the multiple sources combine along with your own individual taste to create something fantastic - something yours.

FDD: 3 & 4

Gah, I forget how busy weekends can be. It's a nice change of pace but I then usually get really anxious to get back to art!

I forgot to post up my piece from yesterday for the daily draw challenge. And today, I really had to rest my wrist so I spent most of it in bed, watching Parks and Recreation. It's feeling better so I did complete a still life study and started a new little piece for my tough girls series.

So, big art post, yay! :D

 My still life was a sandwich! Such a challenging thing to paint but I learned a lot doing it. Unfortunately, it looks better in the picture than it did at the end of this still life... Food tends to go bad. And stink.

Process pics:

Grabbed some boba at the artwalk yesterday, and proceeded to draw people in the area. I love doing this, especially in pen! 

 My next gal, going to attempt to do photoshop this time around. It'll be a fun experience!

FFD: Day 2

Welp, my Thursday nights just got a hell of a lot more lame now. My good friend Paul Richard's is moving up to Seattle this week, thus tonight was the last of the Sketch Squats. I don't want to write a farewell to Paul as I'll be seeing him tomorrow, but don't be surprised if tomorrow's post ends up being a kiss ass post to Paul, hah. 

Regardless, here's the sketch I completed tonight! More of my tough women. I grew up with a lot of women in my family outliving their husbands, so I have such a high respect for elderly women. Not so much of the smoking variety but I based the design of the older woman from a gal I saw at work. 

The little girl was a challenge to draw! I haven't drawn children as much before, so thank you to Daniel and Mathias coaching me along the way! :D 

FDD: Day One

The return of my wrist pain struck yesterday before my personal art hour. I decided to take it easy with some gouache. Another one of my weird, abstract galaxy paintings!

30 Day Challenge: Day 7

My apologies for missing yesterday. It seems my mental health likes to go down the drain on Mondays and all I want to do is read art blogs, hehe.

Well, it looks like all that reading paid off! I did some character sketches tonight and I'm still in utter disbelief that I created these...
One of my favorite subjects to draw are "tough barbarian girls" and I'm going to start trying to incorporate some contrast between them. Here I tried "Poor vs Rich" and instead I feel like I crossed time periods. Oh well, so long as I'm having fun, that's all that matters.

I hope you guys don't mind all the blog posting, because there will be more! I just learned of SatelliteSoda's Daily Draw February. I'll adjust the name of the subjects from here on out, just to be sure I'm being honest about what day I am drawing. :)

30 Day Challenge: Day 6

Somewhat lazy day, I hope you don't mind if I post the studies I did this past week. :D

I have a small notebook that I call my "studybook" so I don't clog my sketchbook too much. The paper is nice for water color as well! Here are some entries:

Top left: "Precision" drawings from life (pencil)
Top right: Gestures from photos (ballpoint)
Bottom left: Value gestures from photos (pencil)
Bottom right: Color face studies (watercolor)

Row 1: Perspective study from life
Row 2: Perspective study from life and value study from life
Row 3: Perspective practice from imagination

30 Day Challenge: Day 5

Dear reader, you will have to forgive me on two accounts. The first is the fact that I've been hiding my life drawing sketches because I've just been unsatisfied with them this month. The second is the lull of the next couple posts, as I have to rest my wrist for the time being. 

Life drawing has always been a favorite of mine, as some of my drawings reveal. There was a two week break for the holidays and ever since returning, I feel as though I haven't been up to par to what I've been drawing before. Especially when having a male model in what feels like months, I could just feel myself struggle and slow down greatly when at life drawing. I could feel my frustration but have not been able to target the source. 

After today's session, I discussed my predicament with Daniel and the only reasonable (and optimistic) solution is the fact that now that I study regularly, I'm starting to see more and more of my mistakes and bad habits. Plus, anytime an art block or anytime life gets difficult overall, it just means I'm leveling up. 

So for Day 5, I present this month's life drawing sketches. There are some small victories, but still a long way to go to being pleased with them like before. 

1/7/12

1/14/12

1/28/12