Hi, stiffness in drawing?

[TheEmo]

Hi (sorry for this being my first post)

I am at a stage where its just depressing to know that my drawings suck. They are proportionatly bearable and there is few errors in the anatomy (I think), however something about them is ALWAYS lacking.

Its not something I can put my finger on but the general jist is that the images are static, boring and stiff.

I also cannot improve on perspective (although I try). Stuff like foreshortening just never looks right.

Basically my images always look like an amatuers... How did you guys get past this point or is there no hope unless your an art student?

[Anid Maro]

Sounds like you can use a good dose of gesture drawings. Don't worry about the details or the rendering, just crank out stick figure after stick figure focusing on nothing but capturing the posture and movement.

After making a whole bunch (dunno, fifty maybe? Draw 'em 'till you're sick and tired of 'em) then pick what you think is the 'best' and make a full drawing of it. Details, anatomy, and all. Either you'll get a more lively drawing, or you'll render the life out of your gesture drawing. If you do the latter then you can pick another gesture drawing to render, but this time take careful note of when and where it starts becoming stiff.

As for foreshortening and perspective, how good are you with drawing simple shapes in perspective? If you can draw boxes and cylinders in perspective then you can do foreshortening on a figure, it just takes the extra work to whittle that shape down into a leg or arm or torso or whatever.

When I'm having an issue with foreshortening, I do one of two things.

One is I stand in front of a mirror and reference myself, usually for complex poses I don't feel like planning out from scratch.

Or two is that I'll draw out the figure with boxes and cylinders like an old 3D game (think PSX era). From there I will imagine myself as a sculptor and that my pencil is a chisel, and then I will 'cut' into the figure and 'chip' away all the excess material until I've 'sculpted' myself a convincing figure.

Carry out the sculptor metaphor as far (or short) as you'd like, but the reason I think in such terms is to force myself to consider my drawing in all three dimensions.

[Chison]

perspective

i (draw human)pick up books learn perspective and proportion at the same time form my start...but my perspective alway wrong until i'm extremely confendent with proportion.w.
for me,this is because now i set solid my proportion so i can finally see what perspective do to proportion

perspective is a different view of the same "mass"
so if the mass aren't solid,is hard to add or reduce

althought i think if you draw landscape,you will possilbely need perspective more early

[Asatira]

In addition to the figure's gesture, which gets the action of the subject, another thing to consider to be able to add life to a drawing is the subject's weight. Unless you're standing straight up, weight even on both legs and looking straight forwards, the human body tends to have weight shifted more to one side or the other. You can often get that across in the gesture. Look at people around you or at photos to see how it goes.

[Crane]

Yes, i do get stiff while dra-oh..... oh.. nevermind

[OmenSpirits]

Yes, i do get stiff while dra-oh..... oh.. nevermind
I was going to thank you for this post, for making me laugh, BUT it just seemed too...ew. lol

[Maxine Schacker]

Give yourself time to develop! Get a copy of Nicolaides "The Natural Way to Draw," A really important book that tries to get you to engage all your senses when drawing. If you can arrange it, find sessions with a model and try to go through all the schedules. Worry about process for awhile- not product. Enjoy yourself.

There used to be a thread on one of the forums where someone was posting her entire experience following Nicolaides. Do try to find it- I think you'll find it really inspiring.

[Max Challie]

They only "suck" as much as they fit your definition of what "sucks". Get an A1 sheet of paper, or several actually. Set it up on the wall, get some charcoal, put unusual music on and draw to the rhythm. Get into it, and spend the time. That should fix the stiffness (i used to be stiff too, was made to do this, and subsequently became too expressive for a period of time, though it has now leveled out to a more comfortable state). Other than that, draw from life more, and get a feel for our subjects, which should be everything you see (not just say, the human figure).

Technical skills are a subconcious thing; it will eventually become second nature to have accurate proportions and perfect perspective etc. When you do finished work, it's all about the drama, and power in that image. Intellectualizing will make things look awkward. A relaxed and objective, somewhat detached approach can keep you flexible enough to adapt to whatever you're doing, and apply whatever the right feeling is. Take it easy; treating art as a chore and thinking of the skillbuilding as difficult will only make it a less enjoyable experience overall, when it doesn't have to be. It sucks for ages because it looks bad, but then you finally get it right and it's AWESOME!! Just drink some coffee, go to the park or something, and sketch whatever :)

[G A I A]

I suggest trying out www.posemaniacs.com
It helps with the stiffness AND humans in perspective. Since I'm doing a lot of the 60sec drawings it got much better than it was before.
You learn to see the important things first and most of them are in perspective. So if you want to draw it in time your brain needs to focus on simple forms. It's easier to put them into perspective, once your brain is caught up in the process you will improve day by day.
When I first tried posemaniacs I really hated it... It was really difficult but after trying for some time, even if it pisses you off, your brain will catch up :)