Forumberichten van Mx. Abi

Sanne,

Thank you so much for hearing me out and putting into consideration this additional pespective.

I respect what Betsy and David have to say, I cannot speak for what it is like to be a model. As I have always been on the other side of the canvas. I can only share what I have learned from the PoC I have encountered.

Sanne I am aware of the profit sharing aspect of your photo bundles and I am a full supporter of it. I have purchased every single photo bundle so far. Part of my reason for buying the bundles is I have used this site long enough that any new additions to the practice session are very welcome. But my other reason is I want to be an active supporter of the site and the people who are so generous as to share their talent. So I always buy them right away rather than waiting for them to come from behind the pay wall.

I love this site, it has been an integral part of my growth as an artist.

And I believe that Betsy and David are the models most recently added to the figure model area, and if I am correct I am a fan. They are wonderful dynamic images and they add great value to this site.

Keep doing good work here, and hopefully with time you will be able to continue to attract diverse models.

This is a delicate discussion and the first thing that we need to do is acknowledge that the 3 voices so far in this conversation (including mine) come from people who are going to be at least percieved of as white, if not actually white. I am white.

And a discussion about the lack of diversity without including diverse voices is always problematic, even if we cannot fix the problem. We need to acknowledge it.

Sanne has absolutly addressed the issue of specifically Black Models, and the lack of Models of Color in general from a technical perspective. There is another challenge that Sanne does not address that should be addressed.

First we must acknowledge the reality of the "Gaze". The Male Gaze is more acknowledged "In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world, in the visual arts and literature, from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the male viewer." It is easy to find examples of and discussions about. And I am not interested in a debate about the reality or impact of the Male Gaze. I simply am going to acknowledge the concept of the gaze impacts art and how people who are women or are percieved of as women are impacted when they model for art.

The White Gaze has a similar impact on People of Color, and again this is straying into a lengthy discussion of politics, society, culture and other areas that I will not engage in a debate about in this forum. What is relevant is that People of Color, especially Black People are often painfully aware of how the images and bodies of Black People have been used by and for white people. Those are facts that cannot be denied. Black People are often painflly aware that the images and bodies of Black People are still being used by and for white people.

As a whole white people do not have a complex relationship with their body or image being used for the benefit or profit of others. Feminine percieved people of all races have experience with this, but white feminine percieved people do not have the same relationship as People of Color. People of Color, especially Black People have a complex relationship with their body, face, image, and stylized representations of their image being used for the benefit of white people. This complex relationship has a long historical precedent and a modern and current impact.

Therefore People of Color, especially Black People are far less likely to offer their image and body to be openly used by artists as a whole to be used to create art. It is difficult to book them for Life Drawing sessions or acquire photographs of their image for the purpose of reference photos for a site like this. Line of Action has access to a fairly small pool of images, and that pool is going to generally come from what is more commonly available.

And perhaps due to the larger complexity of this issue it would be wise to create a premium set of photos - that when a Black Model is gracious enough to gift us with their image to use as references - that are never a part of the free site. And that every artist who makes use of that Model's image has to pay a nominal fee. This would help balance the scales and reduce the complexity that is involved in this sensitive issue.

If we are unable to find the reference photos that we are looking for in Line Of Action, or through other free or low cost sites then as white artists we should turn to paid sites and paid models. It is important that we show diversity in our own art - it is also important that we do not continue to profit and benefit from the free labor of Black Peoople.

Drawing from imagination is in fact drawing from memory - and that means that you need to improve both your memory skills and your human figure skills.

If your goal is to draw without use of a reference then I would reccomend that you split each of your sketch times in class mode in half.

For the 30 seconds just warm up

For the 1 minute, draw looking at the reference for 30 seconds.

Then for 30 seconds, turn the page ,start a new sheet, whatever medium you are using.

Draw from memory

2 minutes, draw for 1 minute looking and draw for 1 minute not looking.

When you get to 30 minutes

15 minutes looking.

15 minutes from memory and then compare to the original image.

By looking and drawing you are setting in muscle memory and taking in details.

Then you are remembering what you saw.

Not using a reference photo means you have to remember all the shapes and forms of the human figure and tha tmeans you need to improve your memory skills.

The reason that proportions tend to get out of whack is because as artists while we draw we tend to focus on one portion of the body and it grows or shrinks based on our confidence, the time we spend on it, and how much we are actively looking at it.

So if the way you build up your form is sort of like building up a set of legos, you draw the feet, the legs, put a torso on top, hang some arms, and then pop a head on it. The figure will be out of proportion and will likely list to one side or the other. Right hand dominant artists tend to have right leaning and left hand dominant artists tend to have left leaning figures.

First focus on the gestures. Gestures are not full drawings, and your gestures may be really rough. And that's okay. The goal is not to have a smooth and finished drawing, it's to get warmed up. It's to learn to see the figure as a whole and not parts. Then lay down a light gesture, find the line of action, then start building your figure on that.

I like to use small dots to mark out the outside portions of my figures. So I have the limits for my figures and I know where I am going with it. After 2 years of solid practice. Life drawing weekly, line of action daily, class mode, 10 minute morning sketches, and teaching other people. I can hold these proportions in my head and work without it.

But it was hundreds of hours with this other work and even then when I do a longer drawing and want proper proportions. I lean in and focus and lay down those dots.

It's so much easier to move a small dash or dot, than erase an entire arm. And then once I have these proportions correct then I get detailed on the areas I want. And the level of focus does not change the proportion of the figure.

I also strongly reccomend rotation through subjects. I adore the human figure and it is the subect I like to do the most, figures and portraits. But every morning I sit down for 10 minutes and do a sketch. And I use Line Of Action to rotate through. I do figure, hand and feet, animal, portrait, then figure again. And drawing animals keeps me fresh.

Trust yourself. You have so many sketchy lines because you don't trust yourself.
Also I am going to guess you are holding your pencil in the traditional tripod stabilizing position, try flipping it so you move from your elbow or your shoulder.

Another practice technique you can do is look. Spend a good 30 seconds, or a minute looking at the image. tracing the movements with your eyes and imagining the movement you are going to make with your hand. You will find that the time you have to draw will be better used because you won't feel so rushed.

Okay mark this resolved for sure.

Apparently Microsoft Edge simply will not give me the upload button AT ALL.

I logged out, tried to log back in. Said my password was wrong.

I reset it, logged in via Edge and am currently commenting from chrome.

This is a work around I can live with.

Thank you so much for your assistance and feedback on this. and again I apologize for the week of radio silence on my part. :)

Hi Team,

I apologize it's been a minute since I've been able to get back here.

I am using Microsoft Edge and the Upload button never appears.

It does not let me drag and drop anything into the browser, so I choose a file to upload and it never gives me that blue button.

I have tried logging in via Chrome and even though i am using the correct credentials it will not let me log in. It tells me that I am not entering the infromation correctly. I went to the profile here and updated my password - used the exact same password in chrome and it said no. I tried my username and my email address.

I am going to back up the advice here.
"Getting better" is too vague and too big.
What does "getting better" mean?

I strongly suggest narrow down your goal.
What is better? Do you want more realism, do you want more defined cartoon, do you want more anthropamorphic? Only you know what "better" is.

I spent a DECADE trying to get "better" and I was never making progress. Then I started to focus on realism, and I chased that for a year, and along the way I started sub goals. A 5 minute gesture executed in 10 lines or less, was one of them.

Learning oil, learning to go back to pen and ink. I set small goals of mastering a skill or technique. And then I discovered a new style along the way an dI am pushing that as far as I can go.

You have to have a specific goal in mind, and then you need to be disciplined to get there.

and I reccomend change it up. I prefer human anatomy and portraits to all other subjects. But I keep myself challenged. Every morning I do a 10 minute sketch from this site. And I rotate through the 4 subjects. It keeps me fresh. Look up Hornet of Justice on Instagram or Hornet of Justice Art on Facebook if you want to see the images I do.

"get better" is not a goal.
Set a specific goal and see what happens.

When I try and submit photos to my gallery I can "browse" on my computer and add the file. I can type in a description etc. . . .
However there is no "post" or "submit" or "finished" button. I can see no way to actually post the photo I am attempting to submit. Other than the use of the URL in the text box.

am I missing something or this is a bug?

• Kim edited this post on September 18, 2018 10:59pm. Reason: Closing support request after a week of inactivity

If landscape photos are not a good fit, what about plantlife?

Mike,

my first bit of advice is to point out that you are drawing the countour of your figures and as such you are not capturing the anatomy.
The second thing I notice is what Kim has pointed out. You have a lot of tiny short little lines, and this is an indicator of a couple of things. First of all you are laying lines down from a very tightly controlled tripod pose in your hand and second you are completly unsure of every line you make.

I STRONGLY suggest that you start using the class mode on this site.

if the hour long practice seems daunting then do the 30 minute practice.
And do it at least twice a week.

Flip the pencil in your hand so it's more like you are holding a laser pointer than a pencil and draw from your shoulder.
In those 30 second poses focus only on capturing the line of action, focus on only the most important details.

Then in the longer poses use that same method to give your figure a foundaiton and add the details after. The tripod way of holding your pencil is great for details but you can't get those details until you have already laid the foundation down.

And if you are going to study anatomy you need to study anatomy.
You need to do studies of arms, feet, hands, legs, torsos.
You need to fill pages with hands, pages of arms, pages of legs.
THere are so many free resources available from You Tube to blogs, to sites, or your library.
You need to study anatomy for the artist and you need to know what is going on under the skin.

Then you need to keep that information in your mind as you lay down the foundation.
You don't need to be able to perfectly render muscle but you need to understand where it sits on the boyd.
You don't need to be able to draw a skull, but you need to know how the skull creates the shape of the face.

And finally you need to learn to make more confident lines.
Challenge yourself, when you draw the line of the upper thigh do it one movement.
When you draw teh line of the forearm, do one movement.

I agree with WK28
My first question for you is how often do you practice gesture? How often do you do 30 second or 1 minute poses? The goal of these is to help you see the entire figure as a whole and not individual parts.

You fell into a trap so many artists do
As you focused on each part, you added it on to where you started. Either the head or the torso, I'm going to guess you started at the head, then hung the torso off of that, and then did each limb.

What happened is that as you focused on each part your perception of the proportion of that figure altered slightly and that is reflected in your image.

You need to practice your line of action, and gestures. To get the figure as a whole down.

Then when you do a 10 minute gesture you need to start with a line of action and build off of that.

For some reason when it comes to art there seems to be this belief that there is a set amount of practice and then you will be "good enough" and practice is no longer necessary.

However, if you look at any other skill we don't believe this. People in complex professions like legal or medical are constantly going back and learning more. Athletes practice constantly, musicians practice constantly.

Visual art is no different.

I strongly suggest that you vary your practice or you will get bored.
I don't practice the bean specifically so much anymore, but I do gestures and use class mode constantly.

I go to a live in person event once a week, I use Draw This on you tube for a streaming drawing session once a week, and then I generally use this site at least once a week for a 30 to 60 minute human figure study.

In the morning I use the animals for a 10 minute daily sketch.

and the constant in the human figure drawing is the gesture.

It warms you up, it gets you in the right frame of mind, it gets you looking, it gets you ready to work. And when you have a single human figure that you are working from it lets you learn their proportions, and shape. How they move. So when you sit down to do a longer image you are ready to go you have already studied them.

Also if you are weak in an area ,focus on it.

I have done several studies using this site to zoom in and just do noses or mouths.
About once a month I do just a hand or foot study.

If you want to get really good you have to learn to enjoy practice for the sake of practice. You have to love it, and view it as part of your creation of art. Not a means to an end.

Gemini,
There is a lot of good advice here, and I agree with what has been said.
I want to challenge you on a couple of things.

First of all one year of drawing is not going to give you the same thing as a lifetime of drawing, or decades of drawing. And some of the people that you are seeing have been drawing for their entire life. So you can't expect to be at the level of someone who has been drawing for 2 decades, even at the rate which you are practicing.

Your consistency and dedication is good and important, and it will get you to where you want to be faster. But there are not really a lot of short cuts here, it's just going to take what you are doing and a lot of it.

The other thing that I challenge you on is your focus on Gesture Drawing as if it were the end goal, and it isn't really. It's a way of seeing, of practicing, of getting into a good place.

As artists we look at each other's gesture drawing and we make critiques and we talk about it, because we are interested in the process. But it is not the end product it is a practice.
I have taken some of my gesture drawings, and repeated them in ink on archival paper because I was so pleased with the result, but most of them are on newsprint, and are in an ever growing pile of filled books in my basement that I keep for no logical reason.

I photograph them and archive them online because I like to see the progress I make and it is easier when you look at the collection as a whole. But they are not the final drawing, they are a practice.

Gesture should be a place to start, it should be a way of forcing yourself to look at the shape, they should be a way to get warmed up.

How much time do you spend on each gesture drawing?

At home I use this site and enjoy the 30 second and 1 minute challenge. It means that when I am in my Life Drawing Session with a live model and we have two minutes, then five minutes I feel like I have all the time in the world.

The point of the gesture is to get out of your head, and trust your hands, trust your eyes.

So if you are spending to much time, then just do 10 seconds, what can you get down before 10 seconds are over, then the next, the next, the next, the next, and move on.