Dancing Man Skech

[Pheep]

http://images.deviantart.com/large/indyart/indymisc/famous_dancer.jpg
I sketched this off a photograph. I would like some sort of comment, just to make me feel welcomed.;) thx all.

[Dryfire]

haha not bad, reminds me of my friend dancing =D I think your bicepts are a bit too small, as well as the figures right forearm. Can you maybe post the reference picture too? I think it would help with the crit
=D

[ceballos79]

nice work!; your sense of emotion is quite good. you captured something of the life of the picture. more important than form IMHO. i only say feeling is more important than form because at a more advance level -- anyone can render form, a great artist captures more than that. yet form cannot be disregarded.

your proportion and perspective is off. you're thinking too left brain -- as in you're drawing what you think you see, rather than drawing the subject. from the way i see it, you worked in parts. making a head, adding shadow, lips, etc, down to the neck, finished that, so on and so forth.

rather than do that, work only in contour. see nothing but negative and positive space. look at a line in relation to another. disregard names -- no longer pay attention to the rendering of a hand or legs. see only the shape of what you're doing. after successfully doing this, and believe me it's hard... when you switch back to 'normal mode' you'll see a figure in correct perspective/proportion to himself. only after you do this right should u go back and do tedious work. shadows, rendering of flesh, etc... that all will come so smoothly if everything is where it should be.

as it stands now, you have nice 'parts', yet aren't thinking in terms of the whole.

[Phait]

What is this 'think you see' 'what you see' stuff I hear all the time?!

[ceballos79]

Unless you're a prodigy -- beginners draw what they think they see. consider a 7 year old child in art class -- he sees a tree, he draws a tree... he's looking at the tree drawing it, but the large oak tree on the piece of paper really looks like a piece of doo doo with hair sticking from it.

the left side of your brain is the logical side of your brain. it's used to name things, or calculate data. so when you see a hand, the left side of your brain labels it 'hand'.

the right side of your brain interprets spatial relationship. perspective, imagination, sensation, etc. when you see a hand the right side of your brain tells you it's 5 feet away. etc etc.

drawing what you 'think you see' is drawing from the left side of your brain. it can't possibly grip the calculations needed to properly attune a form in relation to itself, nor other objects.

that's why i say, don't draw a hand... draw negative space surrounding it... the abstract process of extracting that form will help you use the right side of your brain --- because you no longer see a hand, but only lines spaced out in finite length.

hope that helps.

/rc

[Pheep]

http://www.donna-fera.com/rudolf.jpg
Here is the photo reference, not the actual one, but I had to get it online since I don't have a scanner. Thx for your suggestions. I know what you are saying when you say draw what you see not what you think you see. I find it hard, sometimes, to separate one from the other. I don't get a lot of practice because I am so busy. Not with jobs and the like but school and music and just life. Don't get me wrong, art is definitely part of my life, I just can't find the time to be alone with a sketchbook to draw what I see. Anyway, thx, I will try to work on what you say.

[Phait]

Thanks.

Sometimes I wonder if art has to be *this* technical though...

[egerie]

no, but it's all a question of perception and what's embeded in our psyche. Try flipping the photo upside down and redraw it like that while concentrating on shapes, relationship between them, etc. You WILL be suprised ;)

[franz]

Someone's been reading Betty Edwards :afro2:

[Pheep]

You know, i remember getting an assignment like that in second grade or something. We were told to take a picture out of a big stack and without turning it right-side-up we had to draw what we saw. We also weren't supposed to be able to tell what it was. I was most definitely surprised when I turned the paper over and there was a fox! Maybe I'll try that again.:trippy:

[ceballos79]

Sometimes I wonder if art has to be *this* technical though...
it doesn't, but it does. it's like typography... to successfully break the rules you should know the rules inside and out. you think the design firm Imaginary Forces pulled the title credits to the movie Seven from their ass? they broke basically every classically based rule in the book. but that style is still being copied today because of it's genius... and mostly horribly.

going into college i had the same exact mentality - art is what i say it is. period. no teacher can tell me i don't know what i'm doing or this is wrong. i've done this for 18 years already and my way is perfectly fine.

in a sense that's true, yet hardly close. once you get to a certain level, it's no longer "yay! johnny, you drew that hand well!". it's "johnny... 65 other kids drew a hand just like yours, in fact better... what was going through you're mind drawing this to make it better. did you have a theme? what type of emotion were you emitting? what is the mood? what is your color story? what time period were you gathering inspiration from? oh wait, johnny -- that same picture was already done by 'super artist from 1756 in france'. get the hell out of my class and go be an accountant lamer."

going on 6 years later now i have a totally different idea of what it's all about. the funny thing is -- by the time you've gone through a lifetime of learning -- it really is "art is anything you want it to be..." most people coming out of my school think it was a joke... and in some way i think so too. but like imaginary forces, the level and sophistication of your work won't hold together without a strong base. you don't want to 'discover something' just to have someone tell you it's been done 80 times already. complete freedom lies in a fine artist -- and even they are left with boundaries. to be good you have to reach genius in some respect. not pulling things out of the air, but thinking of things in a way no other does.

Someone's been reading Betty Edwards
do you know i've owned that book for like 5 years now and still haven't read it? haha. yeah what i talked about is totally in that book... got it all from my figure study teacher. maybe some from my assmunch freshmen painting teacher too back in the day.

*********************
yo... i just realized i'm turning into my former assmunch painting teacher and a lamer. BAAAAAALLS.

:eek:

[ceballos79]

Try flipping the photo upside down and redraw it like that while concentrating on shapes, relationship between them

good call.

they made me do that too. hated it. worked though. stopped doing it and did double thought work right side up to get better.

good exercise to kick start your thought process.

/rc

[egerie]

Originally posted by franz
Someone's been reading Betty Edwards :afro2:

*innocent smile* actually I was first introduced to this simple thing in college.. Ceballos79 is right on the kickstarting your mind into thinking differently.

Pheep : Do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it !

ege, who also has to dust Betty's books and actually open them now.