So here I go looking for attention again - My pencil drawings

Here are a couple of sketches I've made over the years.
Just to make things clear:

1. First of all, these are sketches, not art, art is something made on a bigger canvas/paper and are preferably made using some sort of paint.

2. Most of these are made in just a couple of hours or less (the Hepburn one is made in 15 minutes)

3. The anime and (obviously) the portrait ones are taken mostly out of magazines, I don't have enough experience with anime to make up anything I would consider good enough, allthough the foxes are 100% mine and I would be happy to take requests for avatars/signatures if anyone here likes them.

4. I like coffee, cookies and carrot cake!

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...niensis/S1.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...niensis/S2.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...niensis/S3.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...niensis/S4.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...niensis/S5.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...niensis/S6.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...niensis/S7.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...niensis/S8.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...niensis/S9.jpg

These are freehand, made at home, I'm really bad at finishing off mostly everything...
(Maybe you prefer people using digital medias?)

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I like your drawings, espescially Number 11. I don't know what some of them are though, I assume some sort of humanoid animal. The human drawings are nice to look at.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

The animals are just an idea I've been working on, as "fictional" characters they've got good qualities, and some extremely annoying qualities.
I find that developing expressions and personalities are easy, but finishing their bodies is hard, I'm not sure why I even continue spending so much time on them, sometimes I consider just sticking to practising the traditional things like still life, portraits, scenery and such.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Point of advice: Resize your images to a more manageable size. This makes it easier for people (like me) to view your images easily and all at once, which in turns makes it easier for me to judge your techniques and give you advice on what to work on.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by galen

Point of advice: Resize your images to a more manageable size. This makes it easier for people (like me) to view your images easily and all at once, which in turns makes it easier for me to judge your techniques and give you advice on what to work on.

Done...
I didn't like the idea of resizing it too much so the biggest ones have 800 as their longest side.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Vigilius

1. First of all, these are sketches, not art, art is something made on a bigger canvas/paper and are preferably made using some sort of paint.

I call bullshit on that. However the definition of what art is is something that philosophers and art snobs argue about all the time. I would classify as just about anything, and while I don't like most modern abstract art, it doesn't mean it is or isn't art. I just happen to hate it.

The cartoon drawings are pretty cool. Not a fan of the anime heads, however the animals are cool.

The human heads, well you certainly need a lot of work done for proportion. The last head is certainly the best. Just be mindful of proportions and use guidelines if you don't already.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I would have guessed as much on the proportion part, I'm more a fan of the empirical method rather than learning the anatomy before I start drawing, so I guess I'll just need to practise by making more of these drawings.
I notice especially how much I fail at the eyes though, for some reason I end up making them way too small in fear of making them too large.
The anime heads are old, so I don't really care that much about them, they're just something I made when I was bored I guess.

The last one is actually the first, I think it's because later on I focus way too much on the pencil use rather than shape.

FELIPE NO

Faces, when viewed head on, are generally five eyes apart. So if you're worried about the eyes being too big or small, just add in additional eyes along the width of the face. One eye rests between the two eyes between the nose.

Do you do any guidelines at all? Or do you mostly do outlines when drawing? If you're looking to improve your work, then definitely get some fine anatomy books. They'll aid you more than hinder you. Besides, you can always break the rules. Look at Picasso. However you should know the rules before you break them.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by guyinrubbersuit

Do you do any guidelines at all? Or do you mostly do outlines when drawing?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but you should have noticed that I'm a rather messy "artist", I practically never draw using the first line, I usually make at east two or three light handed ones before I use it, as for the proportion part I use guidelines to some extent, but after ten years of freehand practice looking at other pictures I tend to get a bit arrogant when it comes to proportions since my drawing is made more intuitively.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Vigilius

you should have noticed that I'm a rather messy "artist", I practically never draw using the first line, I usually make at east two or three light handed ones before I use it,

Heh, you are not "messy" enough, in my opinioin. Personally, I think knowing the structure really helps you construct an object. It really doesn't matter wheather or not it involves a human characters. :3 Its easier to catch proportion and structural issue when you break down object into simpler geomatric shapes, and this method applies to just about everything.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Magi

Its easier to catch proportion and structural issue when you break down object into simpler geomatric shapes, and this method applies to just about everything.

How very modernistic of you.
Anyways, I use this method, but only to a certain extent as I use it for more wholistic/compositional purposes rather than details.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I don't know what it is, but in the portraits, the eyes look somewhat iconic. Eyes are like lips in the sense that they're just gradual changes in value as opposed to a definite outline.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Vigilius

Anyways, I use this method, but only to a certain extent as I use it for more wholistic/compositional purposes rather than details.

You'd be surprised how useful it is some of those techniques can be use to find forms and building up shapes when it comes to sketching. especially considering that none of the shapes that you see in front of you exist in a vacuum, they have proportional relations to each other and not just in anatomy, but also between different objects.

Learning about at least some anatomy is good, because then you know why certain things on the surface appears as they were, and know how to look for them.

Most amazing jew boots

I don't want to seem impertinent or anything, but to be honest, I already knew about that.
It might not seem so from these fast sketches though, as well as I don't like using the technique throughout the process because I think it undermines a lot of the empirical experience as well as the personality of it all, I think the shapes should come more naturally rather than being a result of drawing the same object over and over again, if I'm interested in finishing a picture I might do that, but not throughout the freehand drawing practices.
So to shorten things up, no offence or anything, but you're preaching to the choir.

I did get one good piece of advice through this thread though, I've realized that I focus far too much on the pencil technique, and that I should go back to practicing the things I used to prioritize (mostly the shape).

How ya doing, buddy?

Then you should know, the "build up" of simple shapes should occurs at the very beginning of the entire process, not throughout. It it suppose to be where we make fast sketches in which would provide the backbone for the rest of the drawing. A lot of anatomical and proportional issue should have been work out at this stage before even start shading. And how is that not freehand? Its not like we are using a grid or anything. Personally, I don't think geometric build up as a method undermines empirical approach at all.

FELIPE NO

It's not a matter of knowing it, it's a matter of practice, that's why these are just fastly made sketches.
For a finished product I'd do more of an effort to avoid such obvious mistakes.
Still, personally I prefer making a first attempt, then do a fast shading and continue with drawing it over a glass-table and correct any proportional mistakes, but I don't have that at the moment so I just practice making as many sketches as possible.
Now I'm annoyed, but in a way it's a good thing since I shouldn't have accepted these drawings as good enough in the first place, I guess I got a little vain there for a short time.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

The shading on those head sketches looks quite harsh to me. It may be deliberately stylised, but if not, the contrasting crisp edges between different levels of shading detracts from otherwise pretty good drawings.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Now that I agree with (nice to hear some critizism from someone who doesn't think of me as a beginner), I've tried to improve my shading/ pencil use, but I have a habit of getting reckless and doing a far too rough job.
Otherwise I usually focus on shape and detail rather than it being so damn correct or the finishing touches which I probably should, maybe I should start by switching pencil softness more often.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I don't think pencil softness is your problem. Or lead softness, if I understand you correctly. There should be no reason why you couldn't effectively use a one pencil for the whole piece. (For example, I use a #2 mechanical pencil for ALL of my pencil works.)

The main issue I see here, and it's an issue that a lot of amateur artists have: You're drawing what you think you see, and not what you see. You've probably heard that before, and I know it seems contradictory, but it really isn't. I wish there was some way, some shortcut I could give you, that would put you on the fast track to awesome portraits, but really the trick is to just keep doing them. When I was in college, for my lifedrawing class, we had to do 5 sketches, one per page in our sketchbook. This is where I really started to notice improvement, when things finally started to "click." Also, I suggest getting a good how-to draw anatomy book (just browse the art section of your local bookstore.) that shows you HOW things are structured, i.e noses, eyes, etc. and copying out of that. That kind of exercise will help you to understand how things are built so when you see something, you can really SEE it.

And honestly, at this point I would worry not about proper shading but getting all the parts in the right places and making it look good and "correct" without any shading at all. Once you can do that, then you can start studying the way light and shadow work.

Your cartoon stuff is very awkward looking. Very stiff. This comes from a lack of general anatomical structure and a lack of drawing experience in general. In order to do effective anthropomorphic animal characters, you need both a knowledge of human anatomy and the animal you are trying to cartoon. You can't just put big ears and big eyes on a vague representation of a cat and call it a day.

That's all I've got.

If you don't mind, would you mind posting some of your "art" art? I'm interested to see what you do with a finished piece.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I didn't realize I was at such an early stage.
As for the finished products, most were made at high school and there's probably just one or two of them that I've kept (rest of them thrown in the garbage), these are at a larger format and aren't as easy to scan.

But I guess I am, since I was about ten years old (I'm 20 now) I've been mostly practicing looking at other things and drawing them, I learned about the "not drawing what you think you see" phrase about seven years ago so I'd think I'd be somewhat beyond the stage of hearing it now, that's why I get kind of annoyed having to hear the basics from others again.

I do understand how you'd think the cartoon stuff being stiff because of lack of anatomical knowledge, they're more a result from a very old attempt (which I've given up years ago) to learn to draw more Disney-like.
I know I need to go over anatomy a lot more, but I usually prefer practicing as much as I can by just looking at things and drawing them since that's what I'm the most used to.
There's also the part of the fact that I can't stand a lot of the academic drawing style because I think their ideal way of portrait drawing loses a lot of character and personality, if you know anatomy through and through you're not really able to draw portraits, but you're able to draw what the anatomy books taught you how it "should" be (although I know it IS necessary to learn it, I get scared of becoming one of those people who can't draw anything else then Greek statues if you know what I mean).

And as I've been judged by proper shading at school for about three years now I refuse to acknowledge that I "shouldn't worry about it".

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Vigilius

I learned about the "not drawing what you think you see" phrase about seven years ago so I'd think I'd be somewhat beyond the stage of hearing it now, that's why I get kind of annoyed having to hear the basics from others again.

Well, as basic as you think that principle is, it is actually one of the most difficult things for someone to accomplish. That's why understanding abstraction and geometric build up is important. I mean, I am still hearing it being reiterated at 300 level art classes from my professors. Don't think it is easy just because it is a basic principle, because they are use and applied on many levels of art as they are made, as far as representational art goes.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Vigilius

There's also the part of the fact that I can't stand a lot of the academic drawing style because I think their ideal way of portrait drawing loses a lot of character and personality, if you know anatomy through and through you're not really able to draw portraits, but you're able to draw what the anatomy books taught you how it "should" be (although I know it IS necessary to learn it, I get scared of becoming one of those people who can't draw anything else then Greek statues if you know what I mean).

That is completely untrue.

When you know how things are built, you can look at something and see how it breaks down in terms of that knowledge, and then you can rebuild it on the page properly, instead of guessing.

I don't know why you think that doing exercises like that will corrupt your style into some kind of classical figure drawing machine, or why that would be such a bad thing. If I could draw like Leonardo DaVinci, I think that would be just peachy.

Believe it or not, I understand why you are so resistant to the advice that you have been given, and that you feel above the things we are trying to tell you because I was once there myself. Trust me when I say that there's always new stuff to learn and there's no reason to be resistant to it, regardless of what level you think you are.

Please, do me a favor: Go to your bookstore and look for a book by Giovanni Civardi - Drawing the Human Body And Anatomical Guide. This is a good book to do exercises from, and it features multiple angles of multiple parts, male and female, in a style which is fairly "modern." There are no Greek statues in there. You don't have to promise anything, just look at it. Maybe you'll get some ideas, maybe it will show you what you DON'T want to do, or maybe you'll end up buying it. I still reference it myself from time to time.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I'd rather draw like Degas than Michelangelo (DaVinci is overrated in my opinion), even though I'm resistant it doesn't mean that I won't listen to reason, I just went to the library as fast as I could and borrowed some books on animal and human anatomy.

I'm just a bit pissed off from realizing how inexperienced I am, which is in a way kind of good, I needed to be kicked to the ground again.
Up until now I've usually been a B student when it comes to arts and crafts subjects at high school (I took a coarse that focused on arts and art history), and now I'm studying philosophy at the university (with no practical art subjects which is extremely annoying), so I guess I got a bit arrogant.
I'll try and make some more finished products soon, but I'll probably keep on going at where I was, but at a faster pace and making more fast sketches than working on my shading (allthough I know I need to work on that too).

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by galen

If you don't mind, would you mind posting some of your "art" art? I'm interested to see what you do with a finished piece.

I'm with this, I can't really critic your work if the ones you posted are just sketches. Your actual work might be better than your sketches, so I'll just wait for those.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by vemp

I'm with this, I can't really critic your work if the ones you posted are just sketches. Your actual work might be better than your sketches, so I'll just wait for those.

I'll try and do some paintings sometime soon...

Jam it back in, in the dark.