Forum posts by Kim

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!

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.

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

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

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.

My goal to improve my faces has a number of smaller problems I'd like to address:

1. The accurate placement of features in a face regardless of angle
2. More lifelike, engaging, beautiful eyes that people fall in love with
3. Easily changing the expression of a face while remaining recognizable as the same person.

Clearly, #1 will be important for accomplishing both 2 and 3, so I will start with 1.

Step 3: Commit to practicing that aspect of drawing 100 times. Each practice should take a minimum of 5 minutes.
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.

Step 4: Start again with a new goal!

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