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Day 23. I tried my best to draw the gesture and describe the forms in 3D space. I haven’t quite got the shapes and patterns down yet, but I am learning to tilt my pencil to draw in its direction, which makes a nice gliding motion on the paper.
Also, each time I make a noticeable error, I try and identify it as an area for improvement next time I draw. That’s essentially every part of the body, but I will do my best to take those errors and learn from them so I can do better next time.
Day 24. Today I spent my entire session trying to improve on the top left figure from day 23.
Joshua Jacobo offered the following feedback on Discord for my day 23:
“Improvement. Remember to avoid the Michelin Man problem. The front of the thigh should not look the same as the back. The outside of the lower leg should be different from the inside.”
So today’s session, I attempted that figure I thought gave me the most problems last time, focusing on the leg area. I tried 18 more times in total. It’s hard to say whether it’s an improvement. I tend to draw the calf too fat. I’m trying to get that characteristic calf shape, but it’s still eluding me.
I was hoping I would improve more today, but I feel like just made more bad drawings. I’ll try again tomorrow.
Day 25. I feel like I’m going through “100 days of how NOT to draw figures”. I feel like my progress is very incremental, but that’s to be expected. I hope to learn from each mistake and gradually filter those away so I’m left with better and better drawings.
Day 23. Today I spent about five hours drawing.
I have been going through Sheldon Borenstein’s Stress-Free Sketching because I know I really need to learn fundamentals. They’re so important that they will make an enormous difference in everything I draw.
The drapery I spent three hours alone on. I don’t have toned paper so I used Procreate. I will need to be mindful of my wrist because I think I’ve stressed it. It’s very difficult to draw accurately on the should, and it was frustrating. I could only get the control I needed with my wrist, but I was there for three hours straight. It was extremely difficult to draw the drapery and I don’t think it ended up being particularly convincing. It’s so much to do as a beginner assignment.
I think I’m now able to do figure drawings in a way I was incapable of a few weeks ago, and I will continue doing them every day to improve while also working on my fundamentals.
Day 27. I’ve been gradually going through Stress-Free Sketching and today I went through week 4 – “Scribble”, which is my first page.
I had some music playing on Spotify while drawing, and I heard an absolutely incredible performance of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, with about 300% of the usual energy. I felt compelled to draw the image of how I imagined the violinist playing, which is my second page here.
I really like the gesture I put down, but I feel I don’t yet have the skills to bring it out and finish the drawing. I’d absolutely love to come back to this once I’ve made more progress, because I think it has the potential to be a great drawing!
My third page is my usual gesture drawings, this time Zika from Daily Life Drawing Sessions. I think I am beginning to be able to capture the gesture better than I used to! I know it takes a very long time to learn to draw gestures well, but I think I sometimes see bits here and there that I like in my attempts. I look forward to continuing with this long term!
There’s still so far to go, but I’m very keen to continue doing this for the rest of the 100 days and beyond. Perhaps I’ll take it to a 365 day challenge?
I’ve also been thinking of the idea that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill. I know that drawing is the skill I most want to master in my life, so I want to get to that 10,000 hours. If I work on improving my drawing skill two hours a day, I might manage 10,000 hours in 14 years. Well, I’m up for it! I want to master this.
I also discovered the certificate program while looking at forum posts. That sounds like such an awesome goal to work towards, and after I finish Stress-Free Sketching and Constructive Figure Drawing, I would like to begin working through the listed curriculum for the certificate! If I can one day reach that goal, I’ll be very, very happy! I’m super keen to do this!
Day 28. I only did one page today. Week 5 of Sheldon Borenstein’s Stress-Free Sketching: hashing out shape (I struggled with this). Then I did three gesture drawings below. I would like to do more this evening, but I’m just too tired.
I’m keen to finish Stress-Free Sketching and finish Steve Huston’s Constructive Figure Drawing, then I’d like to start the Certificate Program curriculum! There just so much to go through and I’d love to work towards it.
Day 29. I did week 6 of Stress-Free Sketching, trying to capture forms on paper. It’s damn hard! OMG.
Then I did my usual figure drawing, this time the 35 minute session with Zika (since I was too tired to finish it last time). I tried to put detail into my final, 10-minute drawing, but it ended up looking like I spent way less time than that.
I will keep going as I want to improve! I want to master the skill of drawing.
Day 30. Emphasis is on the “quick” part of these quick sketches today. Just gestures, pretty much, as I’m very pressed for time. However, the drawing commitment is too important to me to ever have a day with no drawing. I’m just an all-or-nothing kind of person, so if I start missing days, I’ll start missing a lot more days.
Day 31. I started drawing just as tiredness from a busy day started to hit me, so I lost all my energy straight away. I’m disappointed I didn’t give myself more time to draw, because this is all I managed to do before it was too much for me.
Too much time spent writing Christmas cards, shopping, and wrapping gifts today… And I didn’t even get through it all! Anyway… Maybe I’ll be able to put in more time tomorrow.
Day 32. I drew some rocks in Procreate (week 7, Stress-Free Sketching) to try and progress with fundamentals a bit more. I then did a 35-minute figure drawing session.
Day 33. I’m not sure to do once I get to the last 4 minutes of a 10-minute figure drawing. I don’t quite understand how to describe the form further to what I’ve already done. Maybe with more skill, my drawing up to that point would allow for more detail to be added. Or maybe I need to draw on a larger scale.
Day 34. Another 35-minute session this time. I think I will have to look into anatomy and perspective in order to better understand what I’m drawing. Again, I end up being unsure what to do with the 10-minute drawing once I’m 6 minutes in.
Day 35. It was pretty late by the time I started drawing, but I wanted to get at least something drawn. I got some feedback that my forms were mostly spherical and cylindrical, so I tried a box form figure. I’d like to integrate boxes a bit more where necessary.
Day 36. Trying to do cleaner and lighter lines. I ran out of time again so I didn’t draw much, but I would like to improve at my skill.
Day 37. Again, not much time left in the day when I started, but I made sure to do at least something. I feel like I improved to a point with what I’m doing, but I need to seriously think about what areas to focus on in order to improve, otherwise I feel a bit stuck with my limited grasp, my limited ability to “see” the form.
After going through so many hours of watching Glenn Vilppu draw, I feel like I only properly took in about 5% of what he taught. I’d love to do better than this!
I will try and focus on box forms a bit, and learning anatomy might help. However, I think I need a lot more work on the fundamentals of drawing if I want to see real improvement. I want to be able to represent 3D form in space.
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