Forum posts by Kim

That's right Vyse! We can all make time for 15-30 minutes in our days if we decide that it really matters to us and make it a priority. It will pay off huge when you turn around in a year and discover you've made HUGE strides as an artist... And all that time that you don't practice is time you can never get back!

Sylvester, I'm totally in love with that still life. You should definitely continue to pursue that avenue.

And hi Vyse! I took a peek at your blog, and added a reminder in my calendar to check again in 30 days to see how you're coming along since your post said you felt like you could stick to it better if you felt like someone is watching... So just know I'm your accountability buddy now! ;) Looks like you're off to a great start, though.

Mikoko -- I almost assigned myself a nearly identical challenge about this time last year. I love bees! I was gearing up to do concept art for a game, but it got put on hold. So here I am doing faces instead, as I encounter them as a challenge a little more often than bees... But I do really love bees, always have since I was a kid! Looking forward to what you produce. :)

When I draw digitally, I use a Wacom Intuos 3 tablet and a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS3. In some ways it's more convenient, but in a lot of other ways it lacks some of the tactile feedback and control I'm used to, so for now I'm just sticking to pencil and paper. I want to focus on learning faces, not learning the tools. There're just too many odd speedbumps, like the settings changing on me or the pressure sensitivity not starting until I reboot three times that disrupt practice and make it even more challenging to fit it into an already swamped schedule. If I were going to finish and polish any of these pieces, I would definitely scan and continue on digitally from there.

More disappointingly bad scans from me... I think sylvester is absolutely right, it's very strange to post unpolished work. But I find the less I worry about what it looks like and the more I just roll up my sleeves and make a mess and draw overtop of what I'm doing until it looks like spaghetti, the more I learn. Here's to bad work on the road to perfection!

Welcome to the challenge OwenG! Glad to have you with us. :)

I have been poor about meeting my daily goals. I have done some but not as much as I intended. I will try to catch up and remember to scan tomorrow when I have a little more time in the evening.

Looking forward to seeing more drawings from you all!

I've worked out a way to let visitors post images.

[img] http://yourimageurlhere.com [/img]

Thanks for your patience with the early hiccups in the new site. :)

I'm getting the sense the site is trying to protect itself from attacks by clipping out HTML, thus robbing you of your images. Let me see what I can do about that. :)

BTW, I can see what you're trying to say in the back end of the site, and I'm really impressed at your environment sketches. I think the pausing movies thing is a brilliant idea.

I confess to having let my practice slip, slip, slip. I'm finding it very hard to shake off the rust.

My imperfect scanner keeps cutting off the left side and bottom of the pages, but I share what I can!

<img src="https://line-of-action.com/myimagery/face001.jpg" alt="" />
<img src="https://line-of-action.com/myimagery/face002.jpg" alt="" />
<img src="https://line-of-action.com/myimagery/face003.jpg" alt="" />
<img src="https://line-of-action.com/myimagery/face004.jpg" alt="" />

Combination of 1 minute and 5 minute drawings.

Hi Sylvester! I'm thrilled to have you joining in. You've identified some very ambitious goals, and definitely some things that I have terrible trouble with myself.

I've been working on faces. I'll try to join you in posting my faces. :)

Probably the best way to get images here is to upload them into an image hosting service like http://imgur.com/ or http://www.flickr.com/ or http://picasa.google.com/ and then embed them here.

In this piece of self-assigned homework, we'll draw 100 of anything we want to get better at. There's no time limit, although you'll see your best results if you manage to complete the challenge in 30 to 100 days.

<strong>Step 1: Identify what you'd like to be better at, and be specific. </strong>

"I want to be a better artist" is far too vague. Pick a specific goal such as "I want to draw better faces."

<strong>Step 2: Try to break this goal down into smaller goals. List them. Notice if one might interfere with the other goals if it isn't tamed first. Choose the most foundational goal.</strong>

My goal to improve my faces has a number of smaller problems I'd like to address:
<ol>
<li>The accurate placement of features in a face regardless of angle</li>
<li>More lifelike, engaging, beautiful eyes that people fall in love with</li>
<li>Easily changing the expression of a face while remaining recognizable as the same person.</li>
</ol>
Clearly, #1 will be important for accomplishing both 2 and 3, so I will start with 1.

<strong>Step 3: Commit to practicing that aspect of drawing 100 times. Each practice should take a minimum of 5 minutes.</strong>
If you set aside 15 minutes of practice time every day, you can get through 3 five minute drawings. At that rate, it will take only 33 and a half days to complete this project.

Keep your brain engaged in thinking about what you want to improve the entire time. Use reference images and really study (while drawing! Keep that pencil moving!) the body part or anatomy you're focusing on.

You will see dramatic improvement in your area of choice.

<strong>Step 4: Start again with a new goal!</strong>

Post your daily images here, and encourage your fellow students to keep going to meet their goal!