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Hello and welcome to my second 100 day challenge 👋
For this challenge I wanted to step back a little compared to where I left off on my first challenge, meaning this one will be less about a specific subject but much rather about core principles.
What
- general drawing process
- shape
- light & shadow, value and rendering
Why
Since I never achieved alot of mileage in terms of attempting to do finished drawings my ability to shade or render is pretty much not existing.
Additionally I want to focus on the different steps of a drawing as a whole to develop a process that I can follow. For this challenge this specifically includes shape in addition to value/shading.
If things might be unclear if I talk about shape I’m thinking of something like this:
I’m still leaning much more towards a constructional approach even if this might look like how a painter would see and work but I also really like simplifying shapes. So I hope to find a way to combine these two for me.
In the moment my idea is to use/follow the above example but to still always think in 3d and to use and further practise structure to enhance my thought process while working with this shape driven idea.
I don’t know if it will work but at least it’s a basic direction and we’ll see how it goes.
Additionally I may want to add master copys at some point to specifically look for inspiration + solutions and to see how certain techniques I like are applied.
So if you got suggestions for artists to study, especially for ink and also graphite, I’m happy for any idea.
Day 1
If I do any excercises or warm ups in this challenge they have to be centered about what I’m working on.
I also had the idea to use simple things like in this case mushrooms and some fish to experiment with and practise shape.
Lastly some simple cubes to practise value and overall graphite application.
I want all this to slowly develope towards more complex drawings without having a specific day in mind.
Day 2
I feel like a completely beginner while doing these little still lifes. I’m still much more busy figuring out how to hold the pencil and how to apply the graphite. Or in other words I’m struggling more with the technical side than the principles I try to learn.
Especially achieving a gradiation in the background seems to be really tricky while using vertical marks but I found horizontal shading to be really uncomfortable depending on where the drawing sits on the page.
And yes I know I could turn the page but since I’m still learning I think it’s good in that stage to face your weakness and try to get at least ok with it.
I think a few more days to get more comfortable and I’ll try to throw in a fruit still life or something like that.
Day 3
Even if I’m not good at that stuff yet it’s still alot of fun and surprisingly relaxing to fill in those tones.
The first two took a while. Then I moved away from smudging and did a few with just hatching from the shoulder or the wrist, depending on the angle.
I feel like hatching is much better to get some mileage and also dexterity. I tried really hard to not erase and not caring for the result.
I hope if I keep doing these that I’ll arrive at a point there I don’t have to ask myself how to achieve a certain effect in graphite or how to hold the pencil for what angle and much rather are in control of and choosing which look I want to achieve.
Day 4
Not much time today so only some rough animal block ins to practise shape and two still life block ins with local value from photo reference.
In the future i may use a 6b or 9b pencil for the animal sketches, so that they are easier to see in the taken pictures. Sorry for that 😅👋
Day 5
I definitely haven’t done enough spheres. I ruined the top one with smudging and the bottom one isn’t much better.
But despite that I really like drawing those simple still lifes.
Hi Cristopher,
Your first 100-day challenge was a real inspiration! I’ll definitely follow this one.
As for your goal with this new challenge for rendering, it came to mind the work and lessons of Rogerio Lupo, a Brazilian scientific illustrator. He has a quite delicate approach to drawing and rendering very precisely with graphite.
I studied his approach in college, in a class on Botanical Illustration. I understand that maybe your goal isn’t scientific illustration or this kind of rendering, but I think you could get some useful insights about a different process of drawing and rendering with graphite, as I did when I was in college.
He made a free guidebook on his process (available in English), very thorough, with detailed instructions about holding the pencil in certain angles, pencil movement, gradients, exercises to make an even tone, and so on. I recommend you to check it out: https://pt.slideshare.net/bioartes/graphite-for-scientific-illustrations
I also think that it is worth checking out the work of Stephen Bauman, especially his portraits using graphite and white chalk.
Keep up the good work!
Thank you Isabella, I’m already a big fan of Stephen Bauman’s work and I’ll definitely take a look at Rogerio Lupo.
If it’s about graphite I have a really hard time to articulate what type of look or “style” I like. Additionally I haven’t found alot of source’s that go in such directions, neither is there much instructional material on how to achieve those effects.
I tend to lean towards two directions, for one there is the really smooth, realistic and tonal approach like from the mentioned Bauman and second there is the more sketchy and expressive style similar to comic artists. Artists I could mention as example would be Ahmed Aldoori or Marcos Mateu-Mestre.
But beside my personal taste I do agree that it can be really beneficial and I definitely aim to soak in as much of the different techniques of applying graphite as possible. I think the more tools you got, the more freely you can work.
Day 7
Today’s drawing time was really split up, so I don’t have anything solid to show.
But since I, in my opinion, had such a hard time with gradients, I took the time to follow and practise the technique of a book from Marcos Mateu-Mestre. I think if you look from top of the second page to especially the bottom right you can clearly see a kind progression and improvement for that technique. The contrast gets stronger but the gradient also gets more smooth.
So I’ll definitely try to apply this to my next form still lifes.
Day 8
So today I tried to set up a corner on my desk to draw from life. I know it’s suboptimal but at least it’s a start.
I also again worked on gradients there the drawn strokes are going in the same direction as the gradient itself, I still really struggle with those. I found it to be much easier if the strokes are perpendicular to the gradient meaning if the lines are vertical and the gradient horizontal for example.
Additionally I worked on edges and round edges, which is another thing I’m struggling with.
Because of that I tried that fruit still life. Right now I’m not sure if improvement will come the more I do these or if I’m missing something and would just end up repeating the same mistake over and over.
But I’ll keep at it, it just seems that rendering is much harder for me than just line drawings.
Day 9
I’m not really happy with both of these. For the first one I used smudging, for the second one I focused on softening the terminator since I found that the edges on the first try turned out to sharp.
Proko has a really excellent demo on shading a sphere. It might help you out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=R6LL4qP5z5U&feature=emb_logo
Hi Christopher! Welcome back 🙂! My suggestion for your rendering would be to slow down and take more time over it. Pay attention to what the form is doing and how a particular rendering choice influences how the form reads. You’ve mentioned both a sketching and a more carefully rendered style. When I’m rendering (the latter style), I feel that I’m sculpting; creating form. I personally tend to use a small circular motion to achieve an even tone and build a gradient through layers of graphite/medium. That’s not the only way of course, but it’s one way to resolve the things you’re finding difficult. The blending you’ve done on the egg cup does help to soften the straight lines, which if left, make the form look flat. Another option is to use hatching lines which follow the curve or cross hatching which gives you greater opportunity for creating the contours of the form. In any case, you have a great head for detail, so think through what you want, give it detailed attention and you’ll do great 🙂.
Thank you Erik, I actually watched that video in the past and skipped right to the part with the skull demonstration. I don’t even remember that he did a sphere demo 😅 So Thank you I’ll definitely watch that.
Also thank you Deborah. It’s definitely a wall for me that will take a while. Also it’s quite difficult to know, at least to a certain degree, where the problems are but to not fall back into grinding those weak spots on their own to much again.
Which means I have to practise those weak areas on the actual still life, meaning I have to sit through a lot more bad ones 😅
I could go on and on now but I hope that a little bit of patience aswell as keeping to try out different ways, like the circular motions you mentioned, will lead to a somewhat satisfying before/after picture later in this challenge 😅
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