Collecting dust

I have two neat Strathmore toned gray sketchbooks. They're collecting dust because...
Just because...?
Because I'm a wimp and I'm terrified of a brand new sketchbook that needs to be approached differently from what I'm used to do with my common white paper.
One day I felt especially daring and I decided to violate mr. Gray.

So a few weeks ago I found a nice reference photo in my folder (a very stereotypically handsome guy wearing make up - I was actually more interested in the lighting and the sharp cast shadows). My previous attempts at using charcoal were miserable, but here I realized what I was doing wrong.
I was holding and using the charcoal as if it were a pencil! Nice and tidy and precise.
Then I remembered something Shaddy Safadi said during one of his digital painting tutorial videos:

"Be bold!". Be bold with your strokes.
I dislike quoting people, and while the painting process was definitely interesting, I didn't agree with a bunch of things Shaddy said. But his explanation of what being bold means resonated with me.The moment I tried to hold the charcoal stick differently, the moment I said to myself "well who cares if this gets really rough and messy!" and meant it, a lot has changed.

I had fun!
I actually relaxed and enjoyed this new medium, how it can be rough and pasty, but also so soft. It allows me to shade in a way that feels so much more comfortable and natural and fast than pencil shading. I don't care if the outcome is any good. It is a big improvement since last time and I was so happy while I did it. 

So, what have we learned?
- BE. BOLD.
- I had fun dammit, this is a huge step forward!
- This took very little time. Not even one hour. No excuses: I can actually make one portrait like this every weekend almost without sacrificing time. One hour is nothing to an organized person. Which I'm trying to become.
- I AM capable of shutting my brain off. I can be bold and have fun without paranoias. It usually happens at random times, but it's a matter of time before I learn to control and re-create this state of mind.
- I can't flip the page (or use the skecthbook for that matter) until I buy a fixative because charcoal is going to smudge and get every fucking where on the back of the next page :D
- Hence the bad photo. I can't put this thing into a scanner.

This is still a QUEST blog, after all

I have a new purpose for this blog, since the original "draw and analyze daily" is now achieved.
There's something very powerful I discovered, and I'm teaching myself to control it: habit.

:

You'd think this is related to the post. It's not. It's actually a bad, quick custom brush test.

You're welcome.

GOAL 1:
Rediscover what I'm actually passionate about. Which subjects I'm actually interested in. Draw them because my personal art should be personal and free.
Status: I'm horribly influenced in my choice of subjects by what is mainstream (avoid at all costs!) and what is unpopular to the masses (I'll be ignored!). For so much time I failed to realize it's impossibile to feel the drive to draw for myself, if I'm incapable of focusing on what I like to draw.
I'm so wrapped up in this "but all I produce must be appetible because I have to make a name for myself!!" state of mind, that I literally can't understand what I love and what is induced by external pressure anymore.

GOAL 2:
Pick up some healthy habits and report results here:
- Make some physical exercise everyday. I live on the edge of a huge park, I have an exercise bike in my bedroom and my mom is a physiotherapist. I defintely have what I need
- Go to sleep at 12:00 am and set alarm clock at 9:00
- Stretch and make posture exercises everyday for my back and muscles
Status: I've been travelling every week this summer, but during a 10 days stay at home I've already started an experiment. It went great: I could manage all of this, although starting gradually, and be productive with art and meet with friends too. Now I just need to regain my routine.
I'm a very dynamic person and I love sports, so this isn't a huge sacrifice; I'm actually only worried about time management. I'll make adjustments if needed.

Wintertime sketching

From last October. Some of these were made at Piazza Santa Croce (Florence), some while sitting on grass at the nearest park.

I tried to combine the fat tip of a Tombo marker and my usual Staedler fineliner, hunting for a different result. So:

• It's a super fast combo - I can get shadows down quickly without actually drawing the outer lines, and the fineliner's thin tip fixes the general look. Very helpful if I need to practice on solid shading and strong contrast

• Well, I suck at sketching buildings! :D 
• So much sketching... and I can't seem to reduce the amount of linework yet

Experience gained: 3 points!

- I need to be more effective with less detail. I guess I'll pick up my notes from Louis Gonzales' workshop on gesture drawing - it was a gold mine
- I should train my eye with buildings and perspective - it's so intimidating to me, but this must be the right way to break the ice
- Blocking in shadows with a fat marker is a process I enjoy and will probably help me improve on many levels. It's fast, rough and unforgiving

More naked people

Beach and post office - what to do when you're bored as heck. 

Summer was coming to an end :( 

This batch of sketches was done during the same day as this one, so I guess there's nothing special to report in addition to what I wrote there.
What? No I'm not lazy c:

Cutout

I found the reference for this on Pinterest by typing "prostitute". Whut.

Limitations: just one brush, no color picker (not so daunting when you have a greyscale ref :P), no preliminary skecth.

Let see here - at some point I used the cutout filter on the refence: it simplifies the image by reducing the number of colors and making more or less complex adjacent patches out of them. You have control on edge fidelty and color complexity. I looked for something that could help me envision the values in definite areas.

• I used the filter midway during the exercise and my patches of grey were quite close to what happened to the reference picture after the cutout. I wasn't expecting that!
• I don't mind a rectangular, minimal background like that - I feel I'm getting a little more used to this kind of thing

• I don't like the face. There's something wrong with the values and the patches of grey don't really deliver a good sense of  volume

Experience gained: 2 points!

- I need to practice more on painting faces and getting the volumes down in a few strokes. Speedpainting of faces from reference pics with a time limit should work - perhaps I could make 6 per day, 5 minutes each?
- The cutout filter is a valuable tool. I'll definitely use it again to get a better grasp on synthesis

I miss the beach

I decided to slow down and post three times per week. With the current post format posting WILL become more time-consuming, and with academy and all I guess I should focus on good in-depth posts instead of quantity :B

So! here's a sketchbook page full of beach people from last summer. Some of them are amusing.

• I'm glad I could use all the available space in the sheet. The year before I couldn't squeeze in as many sketches
• Poses and shading seem to work fine - the bodies are less stiff than last time

• The linework is often insecure and messy - NOT the good kind of messy
• Anatomy and proportions, as always. I seem to struggle most with legs and sitting poses

Experience gained: 3 points!

- I don't mind a cluttered page. I lovelovelove saving space and drawing tiny helps me cope with fast-moving bad people
- I definitely need to work on legs and hips structure
- The lines are more complex and messy than last year. I can't tell if it's a good thing quite yet D:

I definitely need a hand

Part two of my brief but intense hands session.

Some improvement here, I think.

• Anatomical accuracy and technique improved since the last batch 
• Midtones look better 
• The inking style is a little on the decorative side - I'd like to keep like those "patches" of parallel lines

• Those hands would look overdetailed on a full illustration in this style - the illustration itself would look stupidly overdetailed in this style
• I'm still far from a decent decorative solution 

Experience gained: 2 points!

- I'm going to try with some better thought-out hatching. I'd like the strokes' direction to be actually based on the surface of the object and how its "facets" tilt
- I realized I need some background color to make the "lineless-with-shadows" idea work - or, as "background", what should be part of a full illustration besides hands :v

Need a hand?

 Hands are evil and since my last exam I realized more than ever I lack some real knowledge of their structure. So in July I gathered some reference pics and produced some quick practice sketches.

Staedtler fineliner and Copic markers - I was coming from a week or more without grabbing a pencil (or pen tablet) and my strokes were ugly and unconfident and hairy ugh.

I used my trusty fineliner and the fat brush tip of a black Tombo marker on this one.
Let's see:

• Fat black marker and fineliner are great for quick sketching
• I improved a lot by making more and more of these - the next batch looks a lot better!

• Fingers often look off
• Not drawing for a while is bad. It shows
•  This first batch of marker & fineliner sketches look horrible. The black areas are unrefined and uneffective
• Those parallel fine lines as midtones look awful  

 

Experience gained: 4 points!

- I've been having issues on this. I need to draw hands more often and study muscles and bones properly

- Tombo and fineliner are great mediums I'll definitely use again to get more confident on large shadow areas

- I'd like my inked stuff to look good without those outlines that are exposed to light. In other words, I'd like to find a solution to make subjects look believable by just inking shadows and a little hint of midtones, without the need for outlines

- I need a solution for midtones. I can't figure out how to reproduce them properly when using inks yet

Brush test

Back in August I started working on some more personal custom Brushes. I was looking for something with texture, shape dynamics and a "dry brush strokes" feel. Or something chalky.

Here's a random furry creature I made while testing the brush. I named it Beebo. The brush, not the beast.
Analysis:

•  This Beebo brush looks okay. Not too texturized, still reliable for sketching and blocking out flat colors, with a hint of silky texture. I'm using it a lot
• Beebo feels especially good for scribbling and hair tufts
• The values are decent
• I like the result of cutting out parts of the creature in a nonconventional way

• Beebo needs some more work
• As this was not character design practice, the creaure turned out random and uninspired... but unlike other times where I just draw without planning, I haven't created any particularly interesting body parts/markings 
• Anatomy and perspective fail here and there

Experience gained: 3 points!

- Painting something as a custom brush test instead of just scribbling around is a good opportunity to produce and practice more

- Sketches emerging from a brush test SHOULD be checked and fixed if anatomy and perspective suck, no matter how little planning there was behind :D

- I'll experiment more on weird cuts and framing