Studies/ Thumbnails + Watercolor

 A quote that kinda got me going the other day from How to Sketch with Watercolor:

"I'm a strong believer in practice and hard work as the means to achieving excellence in art. Listening to a lecture, reading books, buying the latest and greatest supplies, cleaning your studio, watching others give demonstrations, anything that doesn't include putting a pencil, pen or brush to paper yourself, doesn't help as much as sitting down and sketching, drawing or painting." -David R. Becker

I spend so much time reading about art, buying supplies and cleaning my studio. I have to spend more time actually doing it... I always find that for me, the most motivational quotes are a lot like Nike's JUST DO IT. Although I find if I get worked up and full of an almost aggressive determination, it's so hard to put that energy into something as passive as drawing. Maybe I need to do something like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54UL0xUt8-s XD

On the update.. I've been mucking around with some watercolour quite unsuccessfully, not totally sure yet if it was my fault or the paper.. probably both. I will have another go now that I'm back at home with my art supplies.

I really want to digitally shrink that last guy's eye.. but that defeats the purpose of a pencil sketch argh, digital is so much easier >.> I'm not sure if I will learn more by making mistakes in permanent inks or working on them until they are correct in digital format?

I think my direction for this week is just studying portraits so I can acquire a few more face and features types to draw and also take note of general similarities they have.

I'm gonna shut up now and JUST DO IT rawr!

People practice

I've been doing a fair bit of random art stuff at my parent's country home, including an easter pinata :D . I did these without reference (except for a quick look at army uniforms/firearms) but not without a lot of random chopping and changing of original ideas. Luckily we got hooked up to TV and internet the other day so I can upload these, will scan the others when I get back :)


Yes the girl is zombiefied because I was lazy to tackle her other eye.. for shame :S

Animation of how I kept changing stuff :P

Random sketches/studies

I rediscovered felt tip pens... all these years I've had them and never really used them, but I appreciate the strong black ink after using a pathetic scratchy ballpoint pen!

Anatomy Sketches 07

Some head studies and stuff. I always have trouble with the shape of the head! I usually make the face too small and low. I want to do some male vs female skull studies soon as well because my females sometimes look masculine and my males look girly.

I painted a skull in watercolour, but again stopped paying attention and went into automatic copy mode.. argh.

A couple of sketches

Just a couple of pretty insignificant drawings I did sitting on my bed. This was just after I went and saw Avatar, which is a great movie. I was prepared to be let down by the hype, but even though the larger plot was a little predictable in places I was on the edge of my seat most of the time. Although it's probably not a new one, I loved the concept of using real bodies as avatars and how your 'virtual' life (although not so virtual I guess if you are using flesh bodies?) could easily become preferable to your real one. Hmm..

Anatomy Sketches 04

More anatomy.. this time taking a lesson from Loomis's book, Drawing the Head and the Hands.