Figure Studies Hour Class Results

Hello! I’m new here and since Im looking to further improve my drawing skills in the summer while Im not in art school, this seemed like a great place to start.

Here are the results of my first one-hour figure drawing practice, and Id love to share them right off the bat so I can tell if headed in the right direction. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! ^^

They look great - particularly your first ten-minute one!

I get into this habit with longer drawings where I find I am running out of stuff to do but still have time? Your second ten minute one looks a bit like something I'd do when I get to that point. The shapes and proportions look all right, but it looks like you've over-shaded and because of that it's lacking the 'pop' of the first one.

Hope that helps!

Thank you for the feedback! I did notice myself getting kind of slower and lost with what to do at the end of the 25 minute, and at the first 5 minute one as well. Both of those turned out more gray and dull than the others, so maybe it would help if I tried to define the lines and details darker, instead of making the whole thing closer to the same tone.

You should first of all work on your lines. Since it's THE visual tool that you use to describe everything else in drawing, it's important to master it. Practice drawing with longer and more confident strokes instead of scratchy ones.

Also don't be concerned with shading at this point. It's too early. Focus on understanding how the body works to stay balanced relative to gravity.

Definitely a great start! Great idea to work on improving over the summer.

I would also add to the comments people have already posted, when you ARE ready to move on to shading, you do not appear to have the control over your pencil needed to produce a variety of subtle shades (although that may just be a bad scan.)

A simple exercise you can do pretty much anywhere, even while riding the bus, is to draw some boxes on a piece of paper and then try to fill every box with a different shade from your pencil, from lightest to darkest. See how many boxes you can still get a different shade into! There's actually a downloadable workbook for this exercise you can get by signing up for our mailing list, too. :)

Lovely but focus more on the shadow shapes and the proportions will fall into place.