Exercises for improving shape and form abilities?

[Aliginge]

I have come to a bit of a sticking point in my artwork recently, basically, the popular opinion about my stuff is that I rely too much on line and don't have enough control over defining form and shape.

Here's some of my stuff - especially the scraps - http://aliginge.deviantart.com/

But what I am after right now are practical drawing exercises for focusing on shape and form and getting me out of this nasty contour-line rut I'm in :P

Materials, subjects, techniques, any and all help will be extremely useful. Quick exercises I can do regularly to build my rendering technique would be awesome!

To be honest I kind of like the idea of drawing plaster casts to improve my understanding, exercises and stuff like that.

Thank you for your time :)

[antquin]

don't work with a pencil. i use a cretacolor crayon, 5.6 mm, to create value real fast, with the comfort of wielding it like a pencil. similarly, use charcoal...or a brush. do studies using diluted amounts of india ink, or even watercolor. good luck.

[Aliginge]

Holy shit! Diluted ink washes! Great plan! <3

Very timely as I just did another pencil piece and failed horribly at defining form again and was having my doubts about pencil. :)

Those cretacolor crayons remind me of some graphite sticks I bought many eons ago, maybe I'll dig those out! Thanks :D

Keep the ideas coming you guys! Any suggestions for suitable subjects would also be awesome :bashful: