Month: August 2022
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Study Group – values 3
We had a pretty straightforward exercise this week in the study group. We were to arrange a still life with interesting shadows and do a value study of it. I chose some water bottles as my subjects, setting them on my driveway, where you can get some softer shadows from the pergola as a comparison.…
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Matt Smith
This is a portrait of actor Matt Smith, from a moment in Last Night in Soho. I have decided to switch from doing figure studies for a while to doing a series of ink portraits. Some of my previous efforts I think are better than this one, but it gets the likeness pretty well. I…
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Study group – values 2
Exercises from week 2 of the Love Life Drawing study group. We continue to work on value simplification, this time with photo reference. The previous week, working from John Singer Sargent paintings, we had the benefit of an artist having already simplified the messy world into a composed work; we just further reduced them. Life…
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Praying mantis
A little while ago I watched a fundamentals training video stressing pen skills. There were ten exercises, like drawing groups of curved lines, straight lines, spheres, color blends. I couldn’t do a reasonable job at any of them. It was humbling. Over a year of training at this nearly every day, and I can’t do…
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Study group – values 1
This week I started with the Love Life Drawing study group program. Each month we will focus on a particular skill with guided exercises, feedback, and QA sessions. This month the goal is learning about value reduction — simplifying the shapes of light and dark that make up an image. Control of value has a…
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Riley, smiling
Digital sketch of my dog, Riley, from a walk on a sunny day in a nearby park. He had a wonderful smile going I wanted to capture. Walking where other dogs have been is one of the rare circumstances where you can see his ears. He’s a laid back, lazy fellow who loves nothing more…
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Dancing girl
One night I was thinking about drawing instead of what I should have been doing — sleeping — and I remembered that Procreate added an animation mode. I wanted to try it out, and what better subject than Aftyn doing a cute little dance? It was fun to do, but animation is super tedious! I…
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Pose of the month, Aug 22
This is my rendition of the Love Life Drawing August pose of the month. I was working on value simplification at the time, hence the very simple shadowing. But I think that wound up looking pretty good, particularly on the drape over the stool. The only part I’m unhappy with here is that dark black…
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Low angle poses, part 6
This week I’m closing out the set of low angle poses from the Love Life Drawing reference library. It’s been fascinating to work with these, and I think I can see real improvements in my drawing from the beginning to the end. My contour shading continues to improve, although I’m still not doing a lot…
