Observation to Imagination worksheet #2 (form)

"Draw through 10 complex objects."

I threw in some simple ones at the end to fill up the page.

Tiny Tank

One more. Hooray, my backlog is officially cleared!

From life. Spent 60 minutes on this, trying to get all the details. Rollover for original sketch.

 

Footsies

Getting close to the end of Hampton's book. This is the first place I've seen feet constructed with the pads treated as separate forms...kind of interesting, but more complicated to draw.

Eyewitness: Medieval Life

Medieval Life, Castle, and Knight, all go really, really well together. Now I need to track down Arms and Armor...

just a few more....

Okay, okay. I'll stop hanging out in the kiddie pool after this, I promise.

Observation to Imagination worksheet #1 (extra credit)

"When I was in art school, I made it a habit to do double the homework, just for fun... You will get the results you want if you push yourself out of your comfort zone."

- ctrl+paint, Observation to Imagination

....

Challenge accepted, Matt Kohr.

 Challenge accepted.

Still Lifes 4-24-13

40 minute studies from around the house. Rollover to see original "draw through" lines.

Observation to Imagination worksheet #1 (form)

It's not a secret that I'm big fan of Matt Kohr and ctrl+paint. I don't usually purchase the special series, but the new Observation to Imagination falls so perfectly in line with what I'm trying to do, I gave in and bought both the videos and worksheets.

The videos are good, as always, though they're essentially long reviews of the stuff Matt's already covered in his weekly videos. I'm not complaining- redundancy is a good thing when you're learning- but you're not missing anything if you don't get these. The worksheets are the meat of the bundle. There's 40 of them, designed to put into practice the principles of the series and, importantly, give you a fixed goal to work towards. I'm going to attempt to get through all of these, interspersing them with my usual doodles and studies.

So without further ado, worksheet 1: practice drawing though simple objects.

Objects are from deviantart's ~1989juni.

I should say that the topics covered in ctrl+paint usually aren't that advanced. "Learn to see form instead of shapes" isn't breaking news to me, nor will it be to anyone who's gone through a drawing class or read a few books. Yet, there's a big difference between knowing something in your head and knowing it in your hands, and nothing short of deliberate practice will get you to that second stage. That's why I do so many "boring" exercises: gestures, still lifes, form construction... it's stuff I feel like I ought to have outgrown by now, but the reality is I didn't do it enough at the time I learned it, and now when my drawings come out stiff or imprecise I know why. In truth, I don't think you ever outgrow the basics, and so I don't let myself feel embarrassed or lazy when I get stuck on something ambitious and need to take a break to draw some floating cubes. 

Sketches 4-22-13

Notes from Weatherly's book.

India

Notes from Eyewitness: India. I've also got the Eyewitness books on cats, medieval life, and pirates. :)

Only one more day to make up now.

Sketches 4-21-13

Willow 4-20-13

I'll never get tired of drawing my cat.

Hands 4-19-13

Sketches 4-18-13

Sketches 4-17-13

More Hampton.

Animals 4-16-13

Weatherly drawings on right, imagined on left (still thinkin' about cats).

Blegh

Be better, dammit!

Molly

Playing catch-up. Two more days to make up for.

Peppers

Hands 4-14-13

Studies on left, imagined on right.

Ref for these and the previous set are here.

Hands 4-13-13

Studies on left, imagined on right.

Sarah

reference pic: link

Still Lifes 4-10-13

Over an hour each.

Still Life 4-9-13

Still Lifes 4-8-13

Still Lifes 4-7-13

40-60ish minutes, objects around the house.

More cats

No reference besides Willow, who's taken to sitting on my sketchbook when I'm drawing. (oh and some reference for the skulls.)

3 more days to make up for.

Sketches 4-6-13

Revisiting some old characters.

Kitchen

In the kitchen, from life.

Sketches 4-5-13

Drawing from videos, trying to understand cats.

Sketches 4-4-13

From Hampton.

Chateau

reference images: link1 link2

One More

I feel kind of bad for posting all these sketchbook pages. I expect they're not as interesting as the painted stuff, but after 8+ hours modeling every day, I really need to get away from the computer.

Bedrooms

Makin' up for lost time, makin' things outta cubes.

Wagons n' Houses n' Things

More Egypt

Okay, I've fallen a bit out of schedule. In part it's due to my computer breaking for a day, but I can feel the laziness settling it. Right now I think I'm....five days behind. I aim to fix that though, so expect to see some double posts in the future while I catch up.

Here's some more research taken from the Eyewitness Egypt book. For the most part I'm drawing objects as they appear in the book but I change the perspective or throw in some characters, so at least it's better than rote copying.

I also found THIS gem:

Which of course made me think of

Good stuff.