Creative Habit: Wrapping Up for the Summer

The last four weeks I have been working to establish a routine for working on a creative habit daily.  The creative habit that I had chosen to focus on was to gesture draw for about an hour each day.  I chose to do this in order to not only get back into the habit of drawing daily, but in order to also work on the figure. I also wanted improve on getting a well organized and comprehendible thought across to an audience through an artistic medium, quickly.  I wanted to take a moment to just share with you my progress along the way.

The Beginning

  

I struggled to get started at the beginning of this project for sure.  Finding the time to do the necessary pages was a struggle between my work and school schedules so I have to utilize online resources as well as live models.  My figures were much more stick-like and are comprised of very hairy lines, a habit that I’m working on breaking now due to this project.

The Middle

  

Got a little better at time management.  I started to get a little more into the form of the figures themselves but still was using the more stick-like figures and hairy lines, something that I was able to take a big step away from the following week.

The End

  

For this week I used a new website, Quickposes, a website that a classmate of mine has been using for a similar assignment and whose gesture drawings I really enjoyed.  I was also looking to make sure that I got a little more variety into my sketches as I had had so many repeat from day to day.  I went with the suggestion to try the Tombow brush tipped pens in order to really loosen up my sketches today.  I also really focused on getting the form of the figure and avoiding more stick figure like drawings, as well as working to avoid hairy line work.

Going forward this is something that I really would like to continue with this summer.  I think I’m going to break away from figures most likely just to get some variety of images in my sketchbook and to practice drawing in different situations.  It has been so nice to be able to get back into taking the time to draw each day, drawing always used to be my escape and school had started to take that away from me this year.  I’m hoping to fall back in love with sketching this summer.

 

Critique 5/1

Today in critique I gained a lot of good feedback.  One suggestion going forward was to really avoid using “hairy lines” which I know has been an ongoing struggle for me to break as a habit.  In order to combat this it was suggested to me to use much thicker markers and hold it more as an extension of my arm than as a pencil.  The brand I was recommended was the tombow brush pen which I was told I could get a Utrecht so I think I’ll look into that to try for next week, at the very least a generic version of these pens.  Another suggestion I got since I have been working off of gesture drawing websites quite a bit was to have a model move around and take ten images or so at random and draw from those in order to get some new references. This had been a difficulty because while I make sure I don’t repeat an image during one session doesn’t mean that day to day I don’t have some repeats, using my own images would help keep figures and reference new.  Also while using my own images I can have my model hold a stick in order to in my drawing morph it into anything to make it more interesting, adding props was another suggestion I had received as well.

Gesture Drawing Creative Habit Week 3

This week I have continued to work on my gesture drawing.  This week I have been focusing on trying to get more figures done each day as I’ve continued to loosen up.  I’m still struggling to loosen up and not get caught up in the little details and it has been difficult to break the habit.  To help this I’ve switched to a more brush like pen in order to make it more difficult to add the little details and be more flowing in my drawing.  Going forward I would like to continue to loosen up while still giving a strong suggestion of the figure.

Day One

 On this day I got really into my sketches and I ended up spending over five minutes on each of them so I didn’t do two pages because I spent over an hour drawing on this particular day.  I was able to get into some of the more particular details and focus on getting more of the anatomy included in each figure so that I could focus on details that I haven’t been having the time to include in each of my figures.  I really enjoyed being able to draw at this pace but still don’t feel as though I’ve gotten free flowing enough to continue in this style, and going forward will continue to just focus on loosening up.

Day Two

 On this day I just worked on loosening up my sketches I did twenty sketches at two minutes a piece or so that I could focus on the shape and the direction of the figures more than the details.  I worked with a brush tipped pen in order to help me loosen up.

 Day Three

 I continued doing twenty figures at two minutes each with my brush tipped pen in order to remain loose.  I’m getting a little better at capturing a better sense of the figure and proportion.  I am still only really getting the bare bones of each of the figures but if that’s what it takes in order to accomplish my goal of loosening up then I know that my drawing will eventually get faster.

 Day Four

I’ve been continuing to just do twenty figures a day at two minutes in order to work on getting the suggestion of the figure and hoping to begin getting more detail in each figure as I begin getting faster.  This is what I will be continuing to do as I go into next week.

Day Five

(See Tuesday’s Post)

Workday Post 4/29

I’m still working on gesture drawing and I’m really enjoying it.  I set each image today to stay on screen for five minutes each so that I could focus on accuracy more as well as get more detail into each figure in order to practice more of the anatomy. I used the large dimension paper and with each of figures being five minutes long I achieved fifty minutes of sketching easily due to the fact that at one point my computer started acting up and I was spending closer to eight or ten minutes on each figure.  

Due to the amount of time that I spent on each figure I did ten figures and only utilized one sheet of paper.  I felt as though I put more than the required time into the assignment.  Only two of my figures really crowd my page I saw it as a waste to continue to a new sheet seeing as I was working in a sketchbook which should be a more casual, open minded setting.

Gesture Drawing Daily Habit Week 2

This week I have worked very hard to keep up with my daily habit.  I have really been enjoying working on my gesture drawing and have been working on that specifically.  I’ve been working in the largest sketch book dimension and doing at least ten, three to five minute gestures so as to have thirty to fifty minutes of drawing each day.  I have been trying to get my drawing to work better with my schedule by trying to get some done at work but this was an unusual weekend and will not be an option in the following weeks.

Day One

So this is what I was able to do on Friday, these I had to do at work so they are a bit rough.  I was able to have some of my coworkers help me out during some down time because of Good Friday.  Each sketch was three to five minutes for about an hour of drawing total.

 Day Two

This is from Saturday and I was again able to use live models while I was at work in order to get a variety of positions.  All poses were three to five minutes again in order to get about an hour of sketching.

 Day Three

These are my sketches from Sunday.  I didn’t work on this day so I used online reference from Pixelovely and I set each image to stay on screen for five minute intervals so I got fifty minutes of sketching.

Day Four

This was Monday so I was again at work and able to use live models for three to five minutes each.

Day Five (See Tuesday Post)

I feel like I am seeing progress in my sketching and I am excited to see where I am able to get with it by the end of the semester, this coming week will most likely have a lot more internet reference as being able to sketch at work is not frequently an option but was this weekend due to the holiday slowing business.

 

Workday Post 4/22

I just wanted to share what I’ve been working on today as a part of my daily habit.  I’ve been working on doing ten or more three to five minute gesture drawings in order to have thirty to fifty minutes or so of drawing each day.  I have also been working on the largest dimension of sketchbook we were allowed to use.

This was my work from Tuesday I used Pixelovely as my reference and set each image to remain on screen for five minutes for a total of fifty minutes of sketching.

 

Inspiration for my Creative Habit

I wanted to share some of the artist’s that really inspire me when it comes to working on figure drawing.  I found most of these artists as I was taking a figure drawing class last year.  My professor was very passionate about what he was teaching and it really influenced me.  His passion along with the artists that he frequently referenced made a large impact of my figure drawing abilities last year so now as I’m trying to get back into this habit I have been using these artists to continue to inspire me so that I can bring that passion back into my drawing.

One of the artists that influence me the most is Euan Uglow.  What really inspires me about his work is that he works in a very linear fashion and he leaves his process in his work.  He also works in a very planar fashion as well which I find incredibly interesting.

4/17 Post

This week has been all about failing forward.  Trying to form a habit has been much harder than I thought and this week has been about trying to figure out what’s going to work best for me to be successful.  Learning how to work around my new work schedule has been incredibly difficult so I’ve been doing single sketches that are more detailed than a whole bunch of gesture drawings because it’s what I’ve had access to.  Moving forward I’m going to look at trying to schedule more specific times to work on this, but I think that the amount of work that I was able to get done was adequate just a little off path from what I thought I was going to do this week.

 

Workday 4/15

I’ve been working for the last couple of days and I realize now that I’ve overcomplicated this assignment.  I have a lot going on and I am really adamant about actually getting into the habit or drawing more.  What I’m doing at this point is working on my gesture drawing for the most part with a focus on working on proportions.  I think that I’ve been so out of the habit of drawing that just getting into any routine at all will be an accomplishment and I really want to do successfully with this.  My goal at this point is to do something more like three pages of rough gesture drawings and three pages of more fleshed out.  I would also like to at least once a week do a fully fleshed out figure.  I think i will start to do that on Fridays as I’ve had a recent clearing of my schedule on Fridays.  I’m open to suggestions if anyone thinks there is another direction i could try.

Moving forward, since I spent most of my time today rethinking my direction with this I will be adding more drawings per page.  I will be working toward three pages of gesture drawings and then how many following drawings I do will depend on how fleshed out I end up working.  That is dependent on how engulfed i get in my drawing and if I don’t want to stop.  This is my new plan of action moving forward.

Creative Habit: In Class Critique

I think that overall my concept for my creative habit was very well received.  Some things that others suggested was to start off each of my drawing sessions with a gesture drawing warm up so that drawing the full figure is included in each day.  I really liked this suggestion because gesture drawing is always useful and I hadn’t been able to find a way to include that into my original schedule but I think if I can spend 5-10 minutes or so doing that each day I think I’ll find it incredibly useful.  It will also be an great way of warming up and to really focus on what I’m seeing in front of me before I dive into what my subject matter of the day is.  This is something very new to me again, since I have spent this whole year as an animation major I haven’t drawn from life in really any way at all but rather have been using online references.  I find online imagery just so much less exciting due to the fact that cameras receive imagery in a different way than the human eye.  I’m really excited to get back into drawing from life and working on my hand skills again.

Another suggestion that I got particularly focused on my plan to collage the fifth week was to really focus on what my under sketches were during the first four weeks.  In doing this I can see what kind of shapes and forms I encounter in my drawing in order to get an idea of the shapes that I will be using to collage.  Initially, I wasn’t planning on keeping collage as one of my medias but after thinking about it I think it will be very helpful to me.  I have difficulty getting outside of myself for inspiration at times and I think that having a week where I will be working more in the abstract will help me to get outside of myself and to push my limits.  I think it will be good as my fifth week especially in order to give myself a creative outlet while completing the rest of my finals.

A great site that was recommended to me as well on the days when I may not have access to a model is the site Quickposes.  I have also found a couple of references that I can use from YouTube specifically focused on gesture drawing.

I was asked to show some of my inspiration as far as my style for figure drawing.  I am very inspired by many of the artists that I encountered in my figure drawing class and I am currently working on compiling a list of work that I use as inspiration.