CA inspired me to try life drawing-->Big DL.

[Mr. Personality]

Hola,

I had never gone to life drawing sessions until I read this board about 3 months ago. I'd like to thank the Conceptart.org crowd for inspiring me to find life drawing sessions in my area. It has been a great learning experience and now I go once a week.

Here's some of what I've done in the past few months. It's all pencil work, and critique is welcome.

http://www.alexrichburg.com/images/life2.jpg

http://www.alexrichburg.com/images/life3.jpg

http://www.alexrichburg.com/images/life4.jpg

http://www.alexrichburg.com/images/life5.jpg

http://www.alexrichburg.com/images/life6.jpg

http://www.alexrichburg.com/images/life7.jpg

[talmir]

Great work.. I wish I could find a life drawing class here on iceland :P

[AttackCat]

hello, looks like you've got a good start here. I wouldn't put down such a heavy contour line though, it tends to flatten the person. Contour line is something i'm always struggling with, so it sticks out to me. Also, don't always shade in the shadows with the same straight lines, like the last one, this also tends to flatten the drawing. Fredflickstone had a great tutorial on techniques for shading....but im not sure where it went. That's great that you go once a week, keep it up.

[Mr. Personality]

AttackCat: Yeah, you're right about the contour lines. I'm still struggling with reproducing the tonality and subtle iines that my eye sees on paper.

I'm off to draw tonight, so I'll take another crack at it.

It's amazing how much you learn in a short period of time when you can draw from life regularly. I didn't really notice the progress until I paged back in my sketchbook to 10 weeks ago and compared it to last week's work.

Again, thanks CA community for helping me get off my butt!

[AttackCat]

good luck then. I'm trying to find a cheap place get some life drawing done. The art students league makes you register (40$) to come in, then you pay an 8 dollar fee in addition. A good model is hard to find.

[Velo]

Hiya Mr. P! These are excellent for your first few months with life drawing. You obviously have other previous drawing experience, comics? The outlines make me think so.

With your outlines, as Attack mentioned, they could use quite a bit of toning down. However, lines can be a very effective way to communicate the figure. If you look through master sketches (old masters) you see ALOT of line, and relatively little actual shading/rendering. Especially in the sketches which are studies for painting or larger work, of course. I think your line would really benefit from more variation in weight, and you should bring it into the figure more often. Sort of the way you did on the ankle, bring the outside line in and let it become a contour or blend into the shading. This will help push forward forms - like mucles - in space. :) Look for it in master drawings and you will notice it is something they did all the time. Just my humble 2cents. ;)