Tag: sketch
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Hampton, part 3
My figure drawing work continues. This week’s work spans two segments of the book, so I apologize for the big swing. In these first couple, we’re rounding up the gesture section. Gesture drawings are about curve, animation, capturing the spirit of a movement. These drawings should be fast, and should never look stiff. Mine still…
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Hampton, part 2
Learning from Michael Hampton’s Figure Drawing: Design and Invention continues with a further 6 pages with of sketches. The book isn’t giving work assignments (at least so far), so I’m just following along with his drawings, trying to get a feel for the rhythms and lines. I’m trying to get into the headspace. I feel…
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Hampton, part 1
I have started a new book for learning figure drawing. It is Figure Drawing: Design and Invention by Michael Hampton. (The link is to an earlier printing, but I’m sure it’s close enough to follow along, if you were so inclined.) I remember learning about Hampton from a Proko YouTube video and being impressed with…
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Happy Friday
I decided I should add some Aftyn portraits to my current painting series. Like the last one, this painting was a failure. What you’re seeing above is the sketch I made before going to color. It’s a nice sketch, but the painting was never able to achieve a similar level of quality or likeness. It’s…
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In Bruges
Portrait of Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, the leads from the wonderful In Bruges. As soon as I saw the movie, I fell in love with Martin McDonagh’s (the writer) sense of humor. It is dark, but with a weird love for the foibles of human behavior. This was intended to be the groundwork for…
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Study group – shape design 1
This month the Love Life Drawing study group focus is on shapes. Simplifying shapes into CSI curves. Making them feel organic. Some guidelines included making them asymmetric in form and using more obtuse than acute angles. The first exercise was in the three parts. Part one asked us to just make a bunch of shapes…
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Study group – Figure 5 ways 4
Concluding the Love Life Drawing study group’s “Figure 5 ways” month, we have a series of figure drawings that attempt to synthesize all the lessons. I built these figures in phases, using simple forms, gesture, values, and anatomy to piece together a final rendering. Marek drove a fair amount of this month, and he brought…
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Study group – Figure 5 ways 3
Marek, critiquing my effort from the first week suggested my value study would be improved by focusing on the light shapes instead of the shadow shapes. To achieve that, I started with a darker background and just draw light blobs and tried to scrub them into the right shapes. I did that once before to…
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Study group – figure 5 ways 2
Our multi-discipline figure drawing month continues. Last week we did a survey of all 5 approaches to figure drawing — simple forms, gesture, anatomy, values, full figure drawing. This week we’re focusing just on the first two of those, with some review instructional materials examining those skills in detail. Simple forms drawing breaks anatomical elements…
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Study group – figure 5 ways 1
It’s a new month and a new topic for the Love Life Drawing study group. The new topic: drawing the figure with five different approaches. We have practiced each of these, so this acts as a review, a kind of synthesis, and a way of highlighting if any of the stages needs more work. We…
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Study group – head and neck 4
This week’s study group exercise instructions went in two very different directions. We could either do last week’s rendered heads again, including lessons learned, or if we wanted to elaborate and abstract things, Kenzo included links to some challenging videos about 2d shape design and composition theory. I watched those and thought “this seems like…
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Study group – head and neck 3
This week we continue our study of head and neck anatomy by adding in shadow shapes guided by our simplified head shape model. I’m using different references this time around, to keep things fresh. There are a couple celebrities and one Aftyn reference. This was a fun exercise! However, I found it hard to stay…
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Study group – head and neck 2
My feedback on last week’s head drawings was humbling. My proportions were bad, my Loomis shapes were off. Advice basically came down to the idea that I’m not really ready to freehand sketch from reference for this stuff, and I should be doing a tracing stage in between. I’ve done that before. Draw your ideal…
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Study group – head and neck 1
This month, my figure drawing class tackles that great beast: the head. The stated goal here is to push forward our figure drawing — not portraiture. This anatomy unit is not targeting likeness. It is about making a form that is recognizable as a head, and giving it some directionality. Where is the subject looking?…
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Study group – weight and balance 4
Another large set of figures for this week’s Love Life Drawing study group as we continue with week 4 of the weight and balance unit. This week we turn our attention to figures more at rest than the dynamic one of the last few weeks. I apologize I am once again unable to share the…
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Study group – weight and balance 3
The Love Life Drawing weight and balance month went a little astray from the topic this week, I think, by focusing on capturing actions and gestural curves. Maybe next week will bring it back together. I’m pretty happy with these figures, though. They don’t have quite the flow of gestural masters, but I think each…
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Study group – weight and balance 2
This week the Love Life Drawing study group returns to the figure studies from last week, adding in a sense of “draw the verb” energy to the drawings. Does that sound vague to you? It felt that way to me! The instructions suggest we’re bringing together gesture, anatomy, and form with a big dose of…
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Study group – weight and balance 1
The Love Life Drawing study group this month is tackling questions of representing weight and balance. Kenzo posted a video some time ago talking about how to find the line of gravity on a figure, and that’s the starting point for the week’s exercises. In the drawings above, the left column of figures are drawn…
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Study group – hips & glutes 4
This week we extend our learning of hips & glutes anatomy to anchor some figure drawings. I’m generally pretty happy with the results, even if the shading gives them all a kind of metallic look. I don’t fully have the swing of terminator lines yet, but they’re not terrible. What I’m happy with is my…
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Aftyn face study
I’ve been working on some drawings of Aftyn from imagination — full body poses — and struggling with getting facial likeness at that distance. The eternal struggle! After four disappointing attempts at the target resolution, I decided to draw a close-up with the intention of shrinking it down and drawing over it with a simplified…
