50 Drawings from life (20/50)

[Wozgut]

Not a week goes by without somebody saying that drawing from life is a great way to improve. That's why I, with the help of my little sister, made a list of 50 things to draw from life. I categorized them to 4 different categories: Food stuff (10), items which belong by my little sister (10), things outside (10) and else (20).
My goal is to get this done within two months, which means that I should make one a day, that doesn't sound too hard. To be honest though I am a person who gets excited fast, but loses the interest fast too. I am trying to improve my attention span, but unfortunately it ain't easy. If it seems like I am falling behind on schedule please slap me a few times. Maybe that will help. Criticism is of course wanted and appreciated, I really need to get better.

First up are:
Bicycle (kids) - 1 to 2 hours - Ugh those tires. I should have at least tried to shade the bike.
Ghost eraser/pen holder - 1 hour - This was fun. Maybe I should have pushed the contrast(not sure if it is the correct word) so that it would look darker, like in the thumbnail. Actually I think have this same problem with the other drawings as well.
Bamboo butterfly net - 1 hour - I liked figuring out how to do the net. Should have spend a bit more time on the rod.
Pillow (without pillowcase) - 1 hour - I thought it looked decent when I was drawing it but now it looks like a mess. A bit too much to handle for now.
Bananas - 1 hour - A bit worse than I thought I would be able to make it. I had trouble getting the texture right.

By the way, can I somehow get my text between the images and still use the attachment manager?

[Wozgut]

A sugar bowl - It looked good to me until after scanning I flipped it horizontally. Ouch. I'll try to use a mirror next time before deciding it's finished.

[Wozgut]

Toy Frog - 1 hour 30 min - Fun! I think it's the best so far. Eyes could still use some work.

[Wozgut]

A fork - 1 hour - I don't like the spikes. I kind of rushed with the shading, but it came out ok I suppose.

[Wozgut]

A cup - It feels like there is something wrong with the handle, but I am not sure what.

[drd]

This is a good goal! I should probably be doing something similar.

When you do drawing of objects with ellipses, such as your last update, the cup, try to slow down and really get those ellipses correct. I did a quick little paintover/ guide on how I go about drawing symmetrical objects, this works for anything symmetrical really. Just be sure to mark the widths of all the major landmarks; if you break the object down into points and distances, its simple to get the basic info correct. From there you can construct the ellipses with greater confidence.

Here is a quick demo by my teacher Vilas Tonape (who is a member here on the boards, Prof T) that is a simple example. http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs279.snc3/28100_1457727289449_1421388463_31221724_1132584_n. jpg

You can see the landmarks and the center line, or axis, of the object. There are curves in the finished drawing, but for accuracy's sake, we use all straight lines in the beginning, the better to measure angles with.

Hope this was sort of helpful, lol

[Wozgut]

Thank you drd. I tried the method a couple of times and it indeed helps in making of those ellipses.
I probably won't have the time to draw tomorrow, luckily it's only a one day break and I mean to keep it at that. So more to come on Sunday.

Today's work:
An apple - 1 hour - Natural sunlight this time, seems to make it harder to draw since it's not so controlled.

[Wozgut]

A lamp - 1 hour - It's hot outside! Rushed a bit too much and didn't pay enough attention to what I was actually drawing. But at least I drew today! I am happy about that.

[Wozgut]

Steam iron - 1h 45min - It's funny how at one point you think to yourself: "Hey, this is so much fun I could do this the whole day" and then after a while you suddenly lose interest. I should have taken a small break and continued later. Instead I decided to just get it done fast. Wrong choice.

[Wozgut]

A cookie - 1 hour 15min - I really need to practice those cylinderic shapes.

[Wozgut]

A bunny plushie - 2 hours - I hope it's a sign of improvement when you start to see more and more mistakes =P. The shading is awful, especially near the nose. It's irritating to spend more time than usual and get a worse end result.
Starcraft II was just released so I was working hard yesterday and the day before that completing the campaign (so much fun). I hope the game doesn't mess up my schedule too much. If anyone is interested in playing a few games just PM me.

[SweetPea]

try to think of them as drawings to make you better, not to have good looking drawings.. become less attached to them, and more attached to the process, and i think youll learn a lot more

[Vertical]

Hey great idea! I think my favorite so far is the fork. But is this slow, studious stuff all you're drawing though? I think it would be a good idea to do some quick gestural drawings. Just draw some quick stuff, maybe try doing some 15 second poses on posemaniacs, or go outside and draw animals that are moving and flying around so you have to draw thw whole idea of the thing without bothering with detail or value. Keep it up!

[Wozgut]

Sweetpea - You are right. I am often scared of what the drawing will look like in the end, which means I am not studying at full capacity. I'll try to work on that. Thank you.

Vertical - Thanks for the idea. Now that I am (slowly) making drawing everyday a habit, it's good to start adding more time to it. I think those quick drawings will make a good warm-up for the day's still life.

Sorry for not posting earlier. Work started for me yesterday, so now begins the hard time. The list is also getting smaller so I can't cherry-pick that much. There's still some fun stuff to come though.
For now I have a broom and a thing I can't name (vase+wooden framework+plant?).
also a work in progress storage shack, I am not sure if I complete it tomorrow or later.

[*ViRuS*]

Great idea. Keep in mind when you're drawing to look for angles and verticals. Constantly measure and make sure your proportions are correct, it can be a bit boring at times, but you'll end up with a solid drawing and a better understanding of how you can translate a 3d object into two dimensions. I can't wait to see the difference between #50 and #1. Keep it up, it already looks like you're improving. =)

[Bengoshia]

Your rendering work is lacking, try to use the side of your pencil to render large parts of shadows, do details later. Like that broom you drew, you always gotta work from the bigger shapes down, don't draw every strand like that especially during the beginning stages. Look at any professional rendering of a person's hair, you'll see its relying more on the clumps of shapes in the hair instead of every individual strand.

Even better than pencil, go grab yourself some charcoal (you might wanna get some newspaper paper as well) and work with that since its more forgiving in ways and is easier to render with imo, doesn't mean the pencil isn't good, I use it all the time. Also start throwing in the shadow, I notice on some of them you don't do that. Rely less on line, remember lines don't really exist in space, they're just used in drawings to separate negative and positive space but usually theres better ways to convey the separation of positive/negative space, i.e. shadows/highlights (it looks more convincing this way).

I can tell you're working hard and drawing a lot of still life definitely is the way to go, after these 50 you should do another 50 and then another. Still life really helps on your foundation so in the end you'll be able to draw more complex things like people, animals, landscapes, etc. Keep at it man!

[Wozgut]

*ViRuS* - I am not sure what you mean with the angles and verticals, can you elaborate? Do you mean that I should pay more attention that the lines are in correct angle in relation to each other? I try to check the proportions often, but maybe I am biased because I seem to get them correct too easy. Thank you.

Bengoshia - When drawing the broom I first drew the individual lines and then later realized that there are those clumps and I tried to darken them to make it look right. From bigger to smaller, I'll keep that in mind.
I need to broaden my use of mediums if I want to get to an art school. I have some charcoal and I promise to use them. Sorry about the shadow! I get it done more often.
I think there is a problem with the way I draw. I tried to write how I do it but I think it is better if I show it with pictures later, tomorrow hopefully. Thanks for the criticism.

I am getting way behind on schedule, haven't drawn much lately but maybe I still have a chance if I work hard.
(Is anyone else really slow at typing things out? I've been writing this post for an hour now even though there isn't much text. It's just insane how much time it takes for me to write a few things. I think too much about each sentence.)

Bread - In the end this turned out decent imo.
Candy - I thought to myself that maybe I shouldn't always do these as long drawings so I made two shorter pictures of candy.
Paper Towel Holder - Decided not to even bother with the texture of the paper.
Ceiling lamp - WIP - Only the outlines are almost done. Lying on the sofa and drawing isn't as comfortable as it should be.
Chair - I've been using copy paper for these life drawings but this is done on a paper from Canson. I didn't remember how much nicer it was.

[*ViRuS*]

Hey, I hope this is clear, if not I could try to explain it a bit more with words, but I did a quick overlay on your chair drawing, which I think is one of your better drawings.

the red lines are the angles, the blue lines are the verticals, and the green lines are how I triangulate using angles and figure out proportions from life.

the human eye can't judge horizontal distances correctly, but- we can see vertical distances and angles pretty well. when you use both of those together you can get really solid proportions. use verticals to see where things line up in a drawing. such as the top of the chair to a point on one the legs, etc.

use angles to make sure things match up correctly with your verticals.

once you have two points figured out, like the top of the chair and bottom of a leg, use two different angles to map out another point- like the left point of seat of the chair. when you have two solid points figured out, and you use the angle from the bottom of the leg to the point on the seat, and the angle from the top of the chair to the same point on the seat, where those to angles meet, is your next point. then you can use angles and verticals to figure out another point, etc.

use points to find other points, and measure that way. I'm sort of rambling because i'm in a rush, but here's that image overlay that will hopefully make more sense. This is just one way of measurement, if it doesn't work for you, there's lots of other options. this is just how I was taught to see when I draw.

Take it easy, keep it up =)