The Motivated Hammer

[Dunn]

Leaf from my pet bonsai. First attempt at understanding light & color. Cheap wacom in either Gimp or Photoshop (can't recall - it's been a while).

[Dunn]

Sweet, it erased the attachments. Let's try again!

[Dunn]

One of my dogs, 30 seconds. Here I'm trying to understand shape and implement some of the lessons Betty Edwards' book taught me.

[Dunn]

Bonsai plant o' mine. Drawing is 9 months old but it's the only thing I've done in color.

[Dunn]

Two of my wife and one of an unreferenced, um, person-thing.

[Dunn]

Goofing off with some new pencils.

[Dunn]

Wife from similar angle as previous drawing. This one 30m while watching a movie.

[ZacD]

In general you need a lot of work on proportions and shapes, practice!

[Pheuronskeurts]

Subscribing to this thread so I get emails for when you update.

Keep Going! If your wife can stand it, draw her summore!
Maybe try some quick studies of her too. That might help with just getting an idea of her basic shapes. I complained about some of the short studies I did at a figure drawing session, but If you break the form down to super simple shapes, you can learn how they relate to each other.

Another trick is to not draw what you know, but what you see. Like, most people will draw what they think an eye looks like, but not specifically they eye they are observing. Its tough esp in the face because we can instantly recognize when something is "off." Some tricks they will do in school is have you copy a photo, but have you draw it it upside down, so you actually observe it.

Im definitely going to life drawing tonight. its been a while.
http://www.avaaonline.org/programs.html
From what ive seen, the skill level varies a lot btwn the people that are there. There are uber awesome amazing people, and people just getting into it. The first part is quick studies, then the second is long poses..its def a mental workout =)