[ErnieTheMighty]

Awesome improvement!

I wanna see some full body stuff from you

Your studies are awesome!

[SeaQuenchal]

Awesome improvement!

Your studies are awesome!

Thanks so much guys!

I wanna see some full body stuff from you

Well, I've been working on this!
The model is from a a video on Stan Prokopenko's website. These videos are great resources because you get to see the real model from 360 degrees and you can just pause the video when the angle is on a pose you like. Really good for studying! I don't know if the deal is still going on, but earlier in the summer at least you could view a limited set of videos for free just for becoming a member.

[ErnieTheMighty]

A-M-A-Z-I-N-G

Glad you've decided to do that! DDDD

[SeaQuenchal]

Thank Ernie, I appreciate your kindness! I'm glad you encouraged me to take on the challenge. Not sure if I'll finish this one soon, I might have to put it on the back burner for now.
----------------------------------------------------------
So I really love the Fine Art program at my local community college. The way it works here is the first year of studio classes is devoted to drawing (first semester, Drawing 1: Fundamentals, second semester Drawing 2: Figure drawing) and the second year is painting (first semester Painting 1: Painting techniques, second semester Painting 2: Kind of a hands-on, modern art history class), and then there is an optional third year that is called Advanced Drawing and Painting where we're given our own area of the studio to set up and work out of, and we pick an artist to study as a jumping off point, and then eventually start creating our own work, our own projects based on what we studied, rather than work on assignments that we're given. At the end of the third year, the Advanced students get to exhibit the best of their body of work in the school art gallery, which is actually quite a beautiful space. The exhibition sort of works as extra incentive to produce lots of good, quality work during the year.

I've just started this third year of studio classes. Honestly, I'm a pretty self-driven art student on my own. When I'm not in school I study well by myself, in fact I get really obsessed with it. But I started this program, not for the motivation, but because I knew it would probably help to speed up my learning process with the fundamentals and I was excited to learn to paint from the knowledgeable artist and skilled teacher that I knew our instructor is. I have indeed learned a lot in the last, two short years I've been in school.

I've got to say that learning painting has broadened the scope of my ambitions. Where before I was only interested in learning to draw so that I could get good at making comics and illustrating, now I have developed a real love for both traditional and digital painting, in addition to my love of figure drawing. My new short-term goal is to begin to learn to paint the figure well and to paint portraits. I've already put in a lot of work studying the head and I plan on putting much more work in studying the figure and into learning new methods of constructing the head. I've been watching Jeff Watt's Friday Night Live Workshops on youtube, and so have been getting very interested in studying the Reilly method that he often references. I've been basing my current studies of the planes and rhythms of the head off of his many recommendations to study the Asaro heads and the Reilly abstractions. Lately I've been seriously considering going through Jeff's online school program, as an affordable alternative to going out to San Diego and studying there in person; perhaps I'll have time for the online school after I've finished the art program here. I've also been getting a lot out of Will Terrell's People Sketching videos, and Stan Prokopenko's figure drawing videos, especially the gesture series. I've been going out periodically with my classmates to coffee shops, shopping malls, the airport, etc...trying to do what Will does in his People Sketching videos and failing miserably, but keep enjoying the process and keep trying to do it and at least getting better each time we go out.

My passion right now is all about figure drawing and portraiture even though I still love the idea of being a comics artist and want to illustrate, I also would love to make figure paintings and possibly narrative paintings, portraits, and things like that. The artist I've chosen to study this year in our Advanced class is Caravaggio because his paintings are totally bad-ass. I have a strong attraction to a lot of the baroque painters though, and I've been looking at a lot of Rubens and Rembrandt as well. I've expressed to my instructor that I am more interested in studying the figure, to draw and paint in the endless repetition that is necessary to master the figure, than in studying any one specific artist, and he's encouraged me to work on this, but also to perhaps not let my figurative goals be an end in itself but in addition to these studies to find the why behind the great masters works, to discover other related ideas in this pursuit, be it ideas of idealism, or conversely, to portray the conditions of the experiences of life. These next couple semesters promise to be very challenging and very exciting to me. I'll work at posting my progress throughout.

I'm curious do any of you go out People Sketching the way Will Terrell does? If so, how successful have you been with it? Did you get good results right away? The first time I went out I was so bad I almost never went back, haha. How about any members here who have attended Jeff Watt's atelier or online school? Or any atelier for that matter? I'd love to hear about it.

So here's what I've been working on in the studio this past couple weeks:
Master study after 17th century Dutch painter Gerard van Honthorst -

Head plane studies (Asaro heads) -

Head abstractions after the Reilly meothd as I understand it -

Gesture drawings using the Stan Prokopenko method. I sharpened my pencil such that I can hold it like a stick of charcoal or paint brush to have more fluid lines, drawing from the shoulder with an increased range of motion, rather than holding the pencil like a writing instrument. I can tell this way of drawing will take a while before it feels comfortable.

Master studies after Caravaggio -

Spoiler: show

Nicely rendered turds. This my friends is why you don't rush past the drawing phase just to get to the "fun part" of rendering. Be patient and take the time to measure!

Great to hear your experience in school is going so well! I'm in my last year of my 2 year animation school as well, I think it will prove to be a challenging year, but a very informative one I'm at a crossroads between going to the fine arts school in my local town, or taking a 3D oriented program after this one. Would you say you would recommend a fine arts program to others? Is it worth the price for what you learn?

[SeaQuenchal]

Thanks man, and congratulations on animation school!

As for your question, first let me say I don't feel I have the experience yet to give this kind of advice because I'm at the same crossroads myself and I still have no clue as to whether I will transfer to an art school after earning my associates here or not. I think it all depends on so many factors that are unique to the individual such as your own, personal goals; how you feel you can best meet them; your level of self-driveness; and what resources you have available to you. I would say talk to as many people as you can who have gone through the programs you are thinking of, or better yet that are already living the long-term goals you have for yourself. Don't take any one person's advice but weigh it against all other's advice and your own thoughts and feelings about it. Personally, I'd rather go to a good atelier than get a Bachelor's degree at an art school, because I want the kind of repetition of studies you get there, that just aren't feasible at a university where you have to follow so many other areas of learning. But the problem is that I don't know if I can get the same financial help with scholarships and grants to do that as I probably could with art school. I've got a lot of research and networking to do before I figure all this out for myself.

Definitely, thanks a lot for the info It helps a lot! I really hope you get the money to do what you want though, its always the schools that aren't government funded which seem the best to me, sadly those ones are hard to get grants, scholarships, etc for. :/ By the way great studies above! So much progress since the start of your sketchbook! (And I can contest that painting definitely helped push you a lot further skill wise!)

[SeaQuenchal]

Thanks, I appreciate it. And good luck with whatever you decide. Based on the level of focus you display here on the forums, I know that whatever you do, you'll be successful, and, perhaps more importantly, you will enjoy the process! I'm looking forward to seeing how this year goes for you and what your next steps will be.

[SeaQuenchal]

Since I'm working on figures and portraits, my best options for working from life are the occasional live model and the mirror. I've been looking at Rembrandt's self-portraits in order to work on improving my own. Couldn't work traditionally today because a power outage on campus closed the school (which is housing all my supplies), so I did a digital study:

[ErnieTheMighty]

ahhh what a cute lad <333

Your master studies look impressive, man. keep at it

[SeaQuenchal]

ahhh what a cute lad <333

Your master studies look impressive, man. keep at it

Thanks guys!

Nice study! I havent seen the original piece but maybe his jaw looks a bit small? Good job nevertheless

[SeaQuenchal]

Nice study! I havent seen the original piece but maybe his jaw looks a bit small? Good job nevertheless

Hi fleur, thanks for checking out my sketchbook and for offering your eye. You're absolutely right about the jaw. In fact, there's a ton of things off about this. Some of them were overlooked, mostly in the drawing stage, but some of the stuff like detail work I didn't want to take the time to mess with.

The goal for today is to do a few more self portrait studies. I think the biggest lesson learned with this one is that I've got to spend more time on mapping in the drawing for now on. The tendency is to go right in to the rendering (the fun part!), but being more deliberate in the drawing stage will be better practice.

[SeaQuenchal]

Work in progress for my first portrait study of the day: Rembrandt 1629 Self Portrait. Maybe about half done including coloring, but I'm moving on to the next one for now. These are free hand (no tracing or grid). Taking the proper time to map in the drawing makes a lot of difference. I realize it may be too early to offer much crit since the rendering is so unfinished, but hopefully I'll have the finished version coming soon after I start this next one.

[SeaQuenchal]

Well I neared my goal with these studies, but the process took me longer than the six hours I set aside to do it. No wonder I wanted to rush the "mapping it in" stage.
Going to bed way too late tonight

[SeaQuenchal]

I'm working on memorizing the Reilly abstractions of the figure and the head by repeatedly drawing them, over and over -- something I hear Jeff Watts recommend on his videos all the time. I'm also working on drawing the figure from photos, and hopefully soon from life. That and more master studies. First one is Caravaggio, second one Rembrandt.

[SeaQuenchal]

Didn't have too much time for drawing today but I started this head study from Caravaggio that I like so far, and a an unfinished back view of an Asaro head. Actually I don't think any of these head plane studies I'm doing are from the actual John Asarao model but I think it's close?

Wow you've done some amazing studies, I'm absolutely loving them and also you gesture drawings, they have a lot fluidity and flow, this is making me want to do some more studies
Keep up the great progress

[SeaQuenchal]

Thanks explosivedesign, your sketchbook is inspiring to me too. You've been studying hard and learned a lot in a relative short amount of time!

[ErnieTheMighty]

I really like how that old face turned out. It's something I don't have patience to do. :3333

[SeaQuenchal]

Thanks! I'm heading in to the studio now to work on it some more and do a few more studies maybe. Patience is something I'm working on more and more. The more deliberate you lay in the drawing, the better it comes out when you move on to the fun part of adding values, render, and/or color.

[SeaQuenchal]

These rendered heads are each details from separate Caravaggio paintings. I'm still working on the bottom right one, and I'll render the Asaro head too.

[SeaQuenchal]

I wanna preach for a minute. Yesterday I rendered some head studies from Caravaggio paintings. I was looking at this decapitated head I drew from his David and Goliath in particular; it was my second attempt at the same head in about a week's time, because I completely failed the first time:

See an improvement, lol? In between these two drawings I learned a good lesson about taking the time to accurately and patiently map in a drawing before moving on to the fun part of rendering. I was doing some studies of Rembrandt's self portraits and the first one was bad because I rushed the drawing part and I got called out on it, so I did a couple more where I took the time to draw accurately and they came out a lot better. The lesson, I think, stuck. There's no point in skipping through the drawing phase to get to the rendering, hoping that a good rendering job will make the drawing better or cooler to look at. It just doesn't work that way. Also, with a well mapped in drawing your drawing will look cool in every phase, even if you don't get to the rendering part. Those Rembrandt's taught me a good lesson, that I already knew logically, but needed to experience it to understand it I think. Also much thanks to Jeff Watts' and Stan Prokopeno's videos for repeating this point so much that I immediately knew what to do to fix my predicament.

Part of the discrepancy between these two Goliath heads is that I simply put more focus on my second effort, but it was in the beginning, lay-in stage where that extra effort was put, and that's my point. I truly tried saving this first effort with good rendering but two things happen when you attempt to save a bad drawing with good rendering: 1) You have less actual structure --information wise -- to complete the drawing if you don't have an accurate drawing. 2) Because it doesn't already look awesome, you don't have the inspiration or enthusiasm to follow through with the time needed to not only render the piece how it needs to be, but to also make all the changes that the structure will require, there's just too much. Even with an accurate lay-in, you'll be changing things around, but they'll be small, manageable changes and your spirits aren't crushed, lol.

(On a side note, I'm not tracing or using grids to draw. There's nothing wrong with using those tools and you might consider using them depending on what you're trying to accomplish. If you do use them, then they actually will help you to "skip to the fun part," of rendering/and or painting. The reason I'm doing all my drawings free-hand is because I'm working to improve my drawing skills as well as rendering.)

So, if my having to learn this lesson the hard way can help anyone out there skip some anguish and take a little shortcut, I thought I'd share this experience and emphasize that it's a GOOD IDEA to be patient, give the drawing due diligence, and take your time to measure and carefully map in the drawing. Thank you.