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Post by mrsmoe on Jan 4, 2024 4:08:36 GMT
At the moment, I'm a beginner artist, and getting myself to enjoy drawing has been a constant struggle. I suffer from severe perfectionism, so making something that looks bad and awkward is like torture to me. Aside from that though, I just don't know how to make drawing a fun experience. I find it hard to view it as anything else than drawing lines on paper/a screen, so I procrastinate doing it a lot.
Honestly though, I haven't attempted making full on art pieces much. Whenever I draw, it's always practice for anatomy or my art style. Do you think that might be the problem? Is constant practice a bad thing?
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jelly
Member
In a way, recordings have the power to raise the dead.
Posts: 121
Pronouns: Ey/Em/Any
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Post by jelly on Jan 4, 2024 4:54:19 GMT
Whenever I'm in a rut or I'm not finding any enjoyment out of drawing I try and do drawing studies of my favorite artists! This could be professional work, comic / cartoon work, or just doodles I see online that I enjoy! To do a study I look at the drawing, identify what I like about it (EX: 'I like the use of negative space here!' or, 'the sweep of the line there is really nice looking!') I'll then try and copy the drawing and other drawing by that same person that has that thing that I like and then use the skills I learn in my own works. Some other things are: - mix up anatomy studies by using the pose / picture your looking at and use it to draw a character you like! This way, you get used to changing things from your reference photo (Which is SUPER helpful) and! You get a nice photo of a character you like!
- Use different materials, could be as simple as using colored pencils or those cheap acrylics you can get, or as complicated as oils (although please learn how to use oils and other complicated art supplies safety before using!)
- Doodle on lined paper or other very cheap materials. It takes the stress away from using expensive materials and feels less "polished," I find it's easier to just mess around when I know that it's just some doodles in the margins or something I'm doing to waste time. I can't use super fancy sketch books for the same reason.
- Just do something SUPER messy. Just full on scribbles! Or you can work on line control, it's a nice practice where you're just practicing your muscle memory: straight lines, curved line, circles, loops, et cetera. It's easy and helps a lot with later works!
- Try a different style! This goes hand in hand with the first bit, but you don't have to use someone else's style, just try something different!
- If you don't like a certain part of drawing DONT DO IT! Skip it! I used to HATE doing line art digitally, so I would just clean up the sketch as I was coloring and it was FUN! Now I have fun doing line art, so these sort of preferences can change. Hate sketching? Just go into it with ink and see what happens! Hate coloring? Just don't! There's some things that you have to force yourself to do for a certain end result, but feel free to drop and skip certain steps at any time.
- Nothing wrong with drawing the same headshot of a character or the same object from the same angle 50 times if you feel like it! It helps with motor control AND you get experience at drawing that character/object!
- Try just making a bunch of thumbnail sketches! quick easy, and they're supposed to be SUPER rough anyways! IF they're clean, that's no longer a thumbnail!
Please know that art that looks awkward or bad isn't really something you can really grow out of, everyone makes that sort of thing from time to time no matter the skill level. Take comfort in that everything made is a learning experience and if you really like the concept or composition or ETC of the work you can use it again and again and again! Nothing wrong with doing the same piece over! Just out of curiosity, what sort of art are you interested in making? Digital, traditional? are you following a course or just doing whatever? Regardless, I hope you're able to have more fun with it!!
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Post by mrsmoe on Jan 5, 2024 5:31:32 GMT
Whenever I'm in a rut or I'm not finding any enjoyment out of drawing I try and do drawing studies of my favorite artists! This could be professional work, comic / cartoon work, or just doodles I see online that I enjoy! To do a study I look at the drawing, identify what I like about it (EX: 'I like the use of negative space here!' or, 'the sweep of the line there is really nice looking!') I'll then try and copy the drawing and other drawing by that same person that has that thing that I like and then use the skills I learn in my own works. Some other things are: - mix up anatomy studies by using the pose / picture your looking at and use it to draw a character you like! This way, you get used to changing things from your reference photo (Which is SUPER helpful) and! You get a nice photo of a character you like!
- Use different materials, could be as simple as using colored pencils or those cheap acrylics you can get, or as complicated as oils (although please learn how to use oils and other complicated art supplies safety before using!)
- Doodle on lined paper or other very cheap materials. It takes the stress away from using expensive materials and feels less "polished," I find it's easier to just mess around when I know that it's just some doodles in the margins or something I'm doing to waste time. I can't use super fancy sketch books for the same reason.
- Just do something SUPER messy. Just full on scribbles! Or you can work on line control, it's a nice practice where you're just practicing your muscle memory: straight lines, curved line, circles, loops, et cetera. It's easy and helps a lot with later works!
- Try a different style! This goes hand in hand with the first bit, but you don't have to use someone else's style, just try something different!
- If you don't like a certain part of drawing DONT DO IT! Skip it! I used to HATE doing line art digitally, so I would just clean up the sketch as I was coloring and it was FUN! Now I have fun doing line art, so these sort of preferences can change. Hate sketching? Just go into it with ink and see what happens! Hate coloring? Just don't! There's some things that you have to force yourself to do for a certain end result, but feel free to drop and skip certain steps at any time.
- Nothing wrong with drawing the same headshot of a character or the same object from the same angle 50 times if you feel like it! It helps with motor control AND you get experience at drawing that character/object!
- Try just making a bunch of thumbnail sketches! quick easy, and they're supposed to be SUPER rough anyways! IF they're clean, that's no longer a thumbnail!
Please know that art that looks awkward or bad isn't really something you can really grow out of, everyone makes that sort of thing from time to time no matter the skill level. Take comfort in that everything made is a learning experience and if you really like the concept or composition or ETC of the work you can use it again and again and again! Nothing wrong with doing the same piece over! Just out of curiosity, what sort of art are you interested in making? Digital, traditional? are you following a course or just doing whatever? Regardless, I hope you're able to have more fun with it!! So far I've just been doing pencil drawings on paper, but my sister occasionally lets me borrow her drawing tablet. I've been doing a little better with it, but not by much. I mainly wanna do both fanart and trippy horror art. I signed up for skillshare a while ago, but I found it hard to follow a lot of the courses because many of them are digital-based. That's why I've finally decided to order a tablet for myself.
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jelly
Member
In a way, recordings have the power to raise the dead.
Posts: 121
Pronouns: Ey/Em/Any
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Post by jelly on Jan 5, 2024 16:32:49 GMT
So far I've just been doing pencil drawings on paper, but my sister occasionally lets me borrow her drawing tablet. I've been doing a little better with it, but not by much. I mainly wanna do both fanart and trippy horror art. I signed up for skillshare a while ago, but I found it hard to follow a lot of the courses because many of them are digital-based. That's why I've finally decided to order a tablet for myself. Oooh nice, I started out with just pencil drawings too for a while before doing other stuff, and eventually digital art! Using a tablet can be tricky at first (especially the lower end ones that don't have a screen, you gotta get used to not looking at your hand while moving it! But I find it also has the advantage of your hand not being in the way when looking at the art you're working on! XD) and yay for fan art and trippy horror art! I'd love to see that whenever / if you feel comfortable sharing it! That's a shame about skill share being mostly digital art... If I'm remembering correctly, YouTube should have a lot of art videos that are geared more towards traditional (as well as digital, but that just seems like the way things are skewing these days ) -- I think watching someone draw is a great way to learn techniques, since you can see them in action, so when I have time I like watching real-time drawings (although I usually have to skip around a bit) or speed paints. Which reminds me! I was recommended this video a bit ago through a dreamwidth comm, and I think you'd like the sort of mysterious feeling to the end result! It shows everything from the sketch to the final piece. It used water colors, but I think you can still find inspiration from the sketching portion and how the artist slowly refines the work.
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Post by mrsmoe on Jan 6, 2024 3:34:23 GMT
So far I've just been doing pencil drawings on paper, but my sister occasionally lets me borrow her drawing tablet. I've been doing a little better with it, but not by much. I mainly wanna do both fanart and trippy horror art. I signed up for skillshare a while ago, but I found it hard to follow a lot of the courses because many of them are digital-based. That's why I've finally decided to order a tablet for myself. Oooh nice, I started out with just pencil drawings too for a while before doing other stuff, and eventually digital art! Using a tablet can be tricky at first (especially the lower end ones that don't have a screen, you gotta get used to not looking at your hand while moving it! But I find it also has the advantage of your hand not being in the way when looking at the art you're working on! XD) and yay for fan art and trippy horror art! I'd love to see that whenever / if you feel comfortable sharing it! That's a shame about skill share being mostly digital art... If I'm remembering correctly, YouTube should have a lot of art videos that are geared more towards traditional (as well as digital, but that just seems like the way things are skewing these days ) -- I think watching someone draw is a great way to learn techniques, since you can see them in action, so when I have time I like watching real-time drawings (although I usually have to skip around a bit) or speed paints. Which reminds me! I was recommended this video a bit ago through a dreamwidth comm, and I think you'd like the sort of mysterious feeling to the end result! It shows everything from the sketch to the final piece. It used water colors, but I think you can still find inspiration from the sketching portion and how the artist slowly refines the work. Well, since you're interested, these are the two pieces of art I'm the most proud of so far. An attempt at drawing Crona.....and some vent art (TW for organs and gore. It's not THAT venty btw. I tried to make it vague enough to possibly resonate with other people) I deeply apologize for the poor picture quality on these. My room has broken lights (hence the terrible lighting).....and my phone is an android. Also, yeah! That painting is really neat. Thanks for sharing!
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jelly
Member
In a way, recordings have the power to raise the dead.
Posts: 121
Pronouns: Ey/Em/Any
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Post by jelly on Jan 6, 2024 16:47:11 GMT
These are good! A problem I see often with people starting out with drawings in that they struggle to get across the concept or idea that they want to, and your art has a very clean feeling or idea that's being conveyed in it! The proportions on the Crona art reminds me a lot of the sort of style that was popular on deviant art in the 2000s, which has a really neat feel to it! and I'm glad you enjoyed the video! ^_^
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Post by mrsmoe on Jan 7, 2024 7:37:09 GMT
These are good! A problem I see often with people starting out with drawings in that they struggle to get across the concept or idea that they want to, and your art has a very clean feeling or idea that's being conveyed in it! The proportions on the Crona art reminds me a lot of the sort of style that was popular on deviant art in the 2000s, which has a really neat feel to it! and I'm glad you enjoyed the video! ^_^ Thank you so much! I find it fascinating that you describe my art as "clean". One thing I struggle with the most regarding my art style is getting proportions down properly. Like....I feel like I draw chins too big or hands too small. A gothic 2000's feel is exactly what I'm going for, so I'm overjoyed by your comparison. I love pointy, thick-outlined art styles, so that's exactly what I'm trying to incorporate.
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jelly
Member
In a way, recordings have the power to raise the dead.
Posts: 121
Pronouns: Ey/Em/Any
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Post by jelly on Jan 16, 2024 16:43:44 GMT
Thank you so much! I find it fascinating that you describe my art as "clean". One thing I struggle with the most regarding my art style is getting proportions down properly. Like....I feel like I draw chins too big or hands too small. A gothic 2000's feel is exactly what I'm going for, so I'm overjoyed by your comparison. I love pointy, thick-outlined art styles, so that's exactly what I'm trying to incorporate. Whoops, the "clean" was a mistype on my part, it should say "clear"! But even messy art can be "clean," one of my favorite artist has a fairly "messy" art style, since it seems like he focuses more on emotion or conveying something rather than anatomical correctness, so it still feels "clean" despite all the messy lines. Proportions can be tricky, one thing that helped me a lot is using guiding lines. You tend to see it a lot in art books where it says "the head is so so size which means that the shoulders are so and so "heads" wide," and while that can be useful, especially if your just trying to get the gist of proportions, I find relying on that too much makes the final result look stiff. What helps me more these days is observing the size and shape of something in proportion to another part of the reference image. "The hand is here, near the knee, so I know that the leg has to be drawn like this so the hand lands in the correct area." Drawing grids over the reference image and then over the paper or canvas your using can also help with training this sort of view, since your forced to look at one square at a time and figure out how it works in conjunction to the squares next to it. (drawing over a reference image, if you can print it out somehow, also helps a lot since you'll have your own guidelines to draw off of.) As you learn from reference images, you get a better idea of how things should look and ways you can push or pull the proportions for a certain effect, I think, and have a better idea on how things should look when pulling from your mind. Another thing that helped me with proportions is to lightly and messily sketch the "outline" of the person I'm drawing (whether from my mind or from a photo) and slowly define and redo the outlines until everything looks to be in the correct placements. an idea that I struggled with but helps a lot is that you should draw what you see, not what you think something looks like. Often times when looking at a reference image, I'm tempted to go "oh, I know how legs look, it would "make more sense" if I drew it like this!" but it won't, even if it looks "odd" by itself, when finished and in conjecture with the rest of the drawing it looks "how it should." Ah, hopefully that makes some sense... Not that correct proportions are everything, a lot of very neat art styles focus on pushing proportions weirdly. It's just easier to make things be the "proportions" that you want after you get a good grasp on what they typically are, but it's not required to know... ack, sorry for rambling so much! And yes! Gothic 2000s is exactly what I was thinking of! Such a neat art style and one you've seem to use it well!
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