Josseline’s 100 Day Challenge: Sketchbooking

[Joshua Jacobo]

Nice. Eyes should lie in the middle of the head vertically. Our tendency is to place them too high. Try to get your lines to wrap around in 3d space, not just hug the silhouette. The silhouette should be made up of 3d lines going this way and that. It’s the sum of many parts. Keep it up!

[Josseline Jeria]

Day 6 – Faber Pitt Pastel – A few basic spheres to practice applying tone. I didn’t sand my pencil so it was quite uneven, despite having done these whilst listening to a video about using your pencil. Doh.

Stabilo point 88 fineliner, fountain pen, graphite pencil. These are all studies of Hugh Ramsay’s sketches and thumbnails.

[Josseline Jeria]

Got it, thanks @JoshuaJacobo . Might be a silly question, but what would be the difference with wrapping around vs. hugging around the siloutte. I struggle understanding this. I draw ellipses around the siloutte of the form to think about the form in 3D terms (might not be clear in those drawings, as I did them lightly so they disappear somewhat)

[ZHI SU]

Lovely sketches. You are so productive! Keep up the good work.

[Zach]

Your studies look awesome! I’m jealous of your super clean hatch lines haha they’re beautifully done!

[Josseline Jeria]

Is it Day 7 already?! This is the longest consecutive run of days spent drawing that I’ve done since I started drawing May last year. The most I’ve done I think was 4, maybe 5 days. I find drawing very mentally taxing, much more so than painting. Part of this challenge is to build my drawing endurance. I am feeling it, did less total drawing this day, but keen to push on and through.

Did some gesture drawings from the daily timed sessions. First time doing them outside of coursework assignments. I REALLY struggle with these. I get so nervous and flustered, tighten up a lot – I in a sense lose the plot, haha. I am wanting to try do a 30min session every day, or at the very least x/week to help build confidence.

Feeling very embarrassed to show these, as they came out awful, but this is part of this challenge, so here goes.

     

[Lucero]

OMG Josseline, I feel your pain. These are not awful, you are thinking about the right things. It’s like Rey Bustos told me, it’s mileage. Just because you know what you are are trying to do, doesn’t mean you will be able to perform it upfront. With gesture drawing, it’s weird, but when I work with thinner media, like a sharp pencil, it’s always more difficult for me to “feel” the motion. When I use charcoal or pastel, I feel like I can hit it more. But that might just be a crutch. Thank you for sharing these!

[Josseline Jeria]

@ZHISU thank you 🙂 working to improve my drawing – mileage very important for this.

@Zach Awww no need to be! but thank you. Haha, my “I can’t decide/think/know what to draw” anxieties leads me to drawing a heck load of lines – least I’ve gotten something out of the anxiety rather than not drawing at all, haha. Plus I’ve done some Zorn etching studies and a couple painting studies all in fineliner – gosh, so SO many lines.

@Lucero thank you so much for the reassurance. I was about to cry this morning posting these, haha. Yeah it’s all about that mileage for gesture. I think that’s in part what makes it frustrating – you feel you understand the concepts and try to draw what you see, but hardly any of it translates into your drawing output. I’m feeling all the learning and growing pains right now, haha. I did some master studies – figure form breakdowns – for Gnass’ course in pen, thought- let’s put yourself up for a challenge… well, it sure was. Totally showed me I really need to work on my line control for gesture work. These drawings did the same. Hard to be confronted with that, but necessary. Thanks 🙂

[Lucas a.k.a “Roams”]

how long did u spend on the gestures josseline? i find gesture super frustrating aswell ive ripped up pages before in frustration because i just couldnt get them right. what helped me is instead of trying to go for really quick ones at the start, start off with will say a couple 5 mins or 10 min gestures and then reduce the times towards the end of ur session, i find it helps getting into the flow because u have more time to think about what u need to put down

[Josseline Jeria]

Lucas – Most were one mins. about 5 2 mins. 3 5 mins and one 10min one. I may give your suggestion a go. I’ve been doing gesture drawings as part of The Spirit of the Pose course I’m doing. They’ve come out better than the ones above but I spend at least 7mins, up to 25mins on each of those gesture studies, so that helps.

[Lucas a.k.a “Roams”]

yeah one minute is tough i struggle big time with the really quick ones too. its all about milage for sure

[Josseline Jeria]

I’ll keep at it!

[Birgith Schei]

Your sketches look great.

[Joshua Jacobo]

Josselin, the silhouette is built up of many forms moving around in 3D space. We don’t want it to be just an outline. For example the neck isn’t just a L and and backwards L. Its’a cylinder for the tube of the neck with trapezius moving behind. Try to always look for the forms that make up the shapes.

[Josseline Jeria]

Thanks @JoshuaJacobo I will work on improving that for my gesture sessions to come.

I find it extremely difficult to get myself to get information down in time for these timed sessions. I’ve been trying to work with a step by step approach – line, basic shape, basic volumes, then add the more organic  quality/ information like musculature. Doing this has been useful for learning but I didn’t do well for the timed component. Still very early days for me. Thanks again.

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