It's so hard to get back after a long down time. Believe me I know.
I don't have any constructive criticism your gestures are great. Low resolution makes it hard to see. However your gesture drawings look like they belong in a how to book. They are spot on work.
It is important to remember that doing the gesture drawing is about warming up, getting used ot finding the line of action, and identifying the form. It isn't about a finished drawing.
And I strongly reccomend that you use class mode, go through the 30 second and one minute, then move on to the longer poses.
I would say that if you like the sharp lines, then keep them.
Trying to get softer or more flowing lines may not loosen up your images or get you what you are going for. I would say that trusting yourself will. And I think you need to trust yourself. Because you have a very good grasp on anatomy here and it shows.
Might I suggest you look into holding your drawing utensil underhanded rather than in the traditional writing grip.
If you look for "Artist Drawing Grip" you will find videos and articles explaining what I am talking about better.
If you are having a hard time uploading - I found that I can only get art to upload when I use firefox as my browser.
The best place to start is to settle in for a lot of practice.
A
Lot
Of
Practice
Class mode is really good for this - warm up and go through the short images. Learn how to pare down what you need to do quickly.
You primarily shared portraits, but even the great portrait artists need to understand proportion and anatomy. So you do class mode on hands, portraits and full figure. I strongly reccomend commit to at least 1 hour session 2 or 3 times a week. Every week.
Personally I do a 10 minute study every morning before I go to work. It means that even if I am exhausted and never make art at night I do 10 minutes a day and I get better and better.
I strongly reccomend that you let go of the idea of painting totally out of your head. Those portraits you shared have both realism and fantasy, and the best way to get realism is to start with a model or a reference photo. You can start with the reference and wander all over the map. But if you don't start with a reference then all your images will look the same and your anatomy may not be accurate.
If you absolutly must paint out of imagination and never use a reference photo then you need to work on memory skills as well. Because painting from imagination is actually painting from memory. So what I do to practice this is when I have a 5 minute pose I spend 2 minutes drawing while looking. Then I do a 2 minute sketch on a new page and not look at the model or the reference photo.
I am attaching something Ira Glass shared and it's really important. He is talking about a different art form but it applies.
"Nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish somebody had told this to me — is that all of us who do creative work … we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there’s a gap, that for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, OK? It’s not that great. It’s really not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste — the thing that got you into the game — your taste is still killer, and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you, you know what I mean?
A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people at that point, they quit. And the thing I would just like say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be — they knew it fell short, it didn’t have the special thing that we wanted it to have.
And the thing I would say to you is everybody goes through that. And for you to go through it, if you’re going through it right now, if you’re just getting out of that phase — you gotta know it’s totally normal.
And the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work — do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week, or every month, you know you’re going to finish one story. Because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions. It takes a while, it’s gonna take you a while — it’s normal to take a while. And you just have to fight your way through that, okay?"
When we look at a picture we tend to look at it in the same way that we are taught to read.
So those of us who read left to right we start in the upper left hand corner of a picture and then follow shapes, lines, colors etc through the image.
Portraits often draw the eye into the subjects face and we rest our eyes there.
In larger images we travel through the image from object to object or figure to figure. Images that feel still cause our eyes to move slowly and then rest on one thing. Images that feel like they have movement cause our eye to circle through over and over again.
Abstract paintings can be very effective at this and are often the easist to disect how your eye moves.
The more abstract paintings like the splatter paintings of Pollock cause our eyes to bounce around and there is no path to follow. No singular path and they feel chaotic and wild because there is no place for the eye to naturally rest.
Your image has no place for the eye to rest, and there is no path for the eye to follow. And it feels directly at odds with the extremely straight lines. So your eyes bounce around like a ping pong ball until they rest either on the picture on the wall or the pillows and bed. And there is nothing visually stimulating there. So your perspective lines are good. It's the composition that is causing the issue.
An old artist trick to see what you are missing is to look at it in a mirror. Computers are useful in that you can flip the image so it's "backward". Then you will be able to see what is really there and not what you have invested and what you think you see.
I hope this is helpful! :)
I had many challenges getting to upload images and I finally had luck when I acces the site using Fire Fox.
Microsoft Edge and Chrome have both let me down.
I have tried my hand at digital and I just do not like it. It loses the tactile reaction that I need.
But that is me.
My mediums are oil, pen and ink, and graphite.
And I practice in different ways.
I do life drawing in Graphite weekly.
I do 10 minute daily practice in pen and ink.
I go to oil when I really want to just dig in and work on something long.
And then when I feel inspired to do a longer image I feel out what is right for me.
So I would reccomend set up consistent rhythms around practicing in your preferred mediums. And if one medium leads you toward one style and the other medium another style. Follow it.
Maybe do a morning practice session as part of your daily routine. And if digital is what gets you moving because the minimal set up, do that. Or if setting up the computer and getting the tools together slows you down, but a sketchbook and pen or pencil gets you started. Follow that.
But I strongly reccomend that you create a pattern of practice that works for you.
If you want to see how that worked for me you can see my work on Instagram on Hornet.c.a or FB under Hornet Of Justice Art.
My insta feed shows you how I move through the mediums focusing on each for a time.
Slow Down
Get consistent in your practice
The longer sketches show the sketchy lines of someone who is not confident in what they are doing. But you do have a good grasp on the fundamental proportions. And that is good. That is one of the most important things.
timed drawing practice is wonderful because it helps you get warmed up, it forces you to sort out what is important and what isn't as you go, and it's really good practice. It also can lead to a race against the clock. Next time you do a class mode - starting at the ten minute drawings put your pencil or drawing utensil down. And just look. Spend a minute just looking.
Plan out the drawing, observe the shapes and proportions you see.
Imagine the lines in the figure as you go along, and draw them in your head. Then take a deep breath in and out, and start drawing again. And do it for everything 10 minutes or longer.
Your goal is not a finished drawing - it is 10 minutes of practice. Let go of perfection and focus on progress.
Get consistent in your practice.
Human figure is my favorite subject.
But I use this site to practice animals and now scenes as well. I am Hornet Of Justice on Instagram and Hornet Of Justice Art on facebook if you have any interest in seeing what I'm all about. And I encourage this - because the best advice I ever got was before choosing a teacher make sure you like their art. They will teach you how to do what they do. So when I get advice from an artist I like to see what they are all about. :)
My practice was all over the map and so was my progress
And then I started doing sketches in the morning and they solidified in using line of action to do 10 minute sketches most mornings. I rotate through the subjects - and I find this useful for more than one reason.
10 minute practice starts my day and it's like morning meditation. It starts my day out right.
Rotating through the subjects helps me learn more and keep things fresh. If you draw the same subject too long it gets stale.
To get good at drawing people you need to get good at foreshortening and proportion. Hands and feet are that amplified and getting good at hands and feet gets you good at drawing people.
drawing animals forces me out of my comfort zone and has caused me to learn many new skills.
drawing the scenes put me WILDLY out of my comfort zone and that is my current challenge.
drawing 10 minutes most mornings means even when I'm too tired or busy to do a longer practice I get in 10 minutes a day and it helps my creativity and consistency.
An alternate suggestion for Class Mode
I love class mode, I love the pressure that 30 seconds places on you, and I can see the wisdom of using it in the environments as well.
I also fully understand why it is so commonly used for artists who draw subjects who are likely to move - like people and animals. I have always been of the opinion that artists who work on sujbects that do not move should invest in the same practice because they could gain a lot.
Would it be possible to have two class modes?
Classic / Traditional / Fast Class mode
Starting with the 30 seconds and lengthening as you do now
Slow / moderate / adjustes Class mode
Starting with 2 or 5 minutes rather than 30 seonds.
Then we can have our cake and eat it to.
Kim,
I logged in to practice and I saw the new beta scenes and environments.
I literally gasped out loud and made my girlfriend run over and look at it. She ALSO gasped out loud and now she is going to get her own subscription to Line of Action!
This is such an amazing new year present!
I have a fair collection of photos I have taken over the years that include environments and scenes and I would be very happy to add to your collection. So as you get an idea of what you want to add please let us know so I can help.
I am so excited! This is AMAZING!
Stop doing just hands.
I got to a point where I got really stuck on progress and got so frustrated. My favorite subject is people.
My girlfriend suggested I do animals as a break. I did, and when I came back to people I found that I learned a lot from the animal study.
Doing a one hour study each day is great, I put in a similar amount of practice on most days.
But I do not just do a single subject over and over. I rotate.
Every morning I do a 10 minute practice before work. i rotate through the four subjects on the site.
Then once a week I do a study again rotating.
The rest of the week I do different subjects or practices.
Hands a really good to help you learn proportion and foreshortening.
Drawing animals forces you to see shapes and break things down and helps you see people better.
You Tube is your friend. Keep searching tutorials until you find one that really resonantes with you.
Practice.
Practice it a lot.
Then practice it some more.
about once a week I do a 1 hour class mode, and I rotate through portrait, animal, figure, and hands and feet.
And the first time I tried 30 second hands I thought I was going to die a miserable death of can't do it itus
But the purpose of the 30 seconds is so learn how to get out of your head and just get the over all shape. There is no right way to do it.
Just DO IT
Hands and feet are really hard because they are all foreshortening and proportion. But that's waht makes them such good practice because if you can master them you can master anything.
You have excellent proportions through the entire body, and I see a great deal of confidence in your lines, your shapes and your style. You have good control over your over all image.
Where you will want to focus on in regards to your proportions is the head - some of the heads are a touch small. Not enough to make the image look bad - they are just a touch small in some of the images.
Regarding the stiffness there are two things that you can do to address this.
Nes_Paper is correct in their assessment - make sure you are spending time on the gestures do the 30 second poses I strongly reccomend using class mode on a regular basis.
I also read a certain level of discomfort with drawing the physical male form .
Torsos and limbs are all well executed, you also draw them without genitalia. And I don't know if this is to avoid nudity rules or if you are not comfortable with including that portion of the anatomy. Are you equally uncomfortable with bodies that are assigned female at birth?
I attend life drawing on a weekly basis and the majority of the models are cis women and when the first cis man came to pose I was wildly out of my comfort zone. It took about 5 or 6 sessions with a cis male model to get more comfortable with drawing the penis in my life drawing.
I don't know that you should open up about your comfort levels here as that may put you in a vulnerable position. I do know that the emotions we bring to the page show through in our art. And if we are uncomfortable or feeling restrained or stiff when we are drawing that can come through. So if the naked body of someone who looks like a man makes you uncomfortable - try doing clothed models and really focusing not on the form or the proportion but loosening up and getting a more dynamic pose and feel to the image.
The other thing that I do is this
Human figure is my absolute favorite subject to draw.
I also rotate my studies using this site.
I do Hands and Feet, Figures, Portraits, Animals, and then hands and feet. I rotate through them, doing a 10 minute sketch every day and a 60 minute study at least once a week.
I have found that hands and feet are good practice because they are all proportion and foreshortening and if you can master that, you can do the human figure.
I also find that drawing animals clears the air - it makes me come at things in a new way and I come back to human figures with a fresher perspective.
I hope this helps.
Your work is good and you should be proud of what you are doing. All of the above is in an effort to help you acheive your goals.
