DECISIVE

I'm becoming aware that at least part of the reason for all my indecisive linework in these quicksketches is because I have too many ideas of what I'm trying to do and I don't choose one. What I mean is - I've delved a little ways into various approaches to gesture drawing (Proko, Vilppu, Huston, Stanchfield etc) and now I'm getting interested in contour, continuous line and rhythm drawing techniques. And when I sit down to do some figure sketches all these approaches are drifting through my head, and as I draw I seem to shift from one to another. Or worse, since I haven't developed complete proficiency in any of them yet, I'm shifting from half-formed notions of one to something consisting of bits and pieces of others. It's like if you step into the dojo knowing a little about karate, judo, jiu jitsu, and aikido, and have your head full of old movies with guys fighting, and no clear idea of what approach you're going to use. You'd be a mess!! You'd just hurt yourself.

I'm still thinking about what Sycra said (2 posts back) about drilling until you get the form down perfectly. It requires commitment to one discipline and a clear head. Focus.

Note - there's nothing wrong with restated lines - they can be a beautiful part of a drawing. It's the indecisive or hairy lines that have to go.

And of course part of the problem is that I'm still developing my ideas about the figure.

I think there's another reason as well - I'm searching for a very intuitive and fluid way to draw the figure, and trying to learn more about it as I go forward. I suspect those people who have a very specific way of doing gestures (for instance) and never vary from it don't learn anything from it, except how to make nice smooth lines.

There seems to be a certain way that a lot of today's digital artists conceive of the figure that's very materialistic, as if they see the body as a machine made of definite and unchanging parts hinged together. I think this comes from video games and CGI mostly. Maybe action figures too. Personally my influences come from drawing and painting of the past - key among them of course the heroic fantasy artists of the 60's/70's and lots of illustrators. The ones I'm drawn to, at least the ones I'm thinking of now, tended to draw in a loose intuitive way, and I'm sure they trained with a lot of contour and rhythm drawing exercises, including blind contour. A strong emphasis on intuition and fluidity. The really good artists (my opinion) blend materialism and intuition.

But see - I'm whaffling (being indecisive) - I have all these different ideas about why I make hairy sloppy drawings, and when I set out to think about it I come up with more ideas and end up writing an essay rather than focus on the actual problem and a clear solution. It's good to think about these things - hell it's necessary. Leonardo said something about an artist who doesn't theorize being like a sailor setting off on a journey without compass or charts. But I need to end it with a clear concise solution to the stated problem.

So here it is - designate an amount of time to doing one type of exercise. Be clear which it is. Look at tutorials or books about it, get an idea of how to practice it, and then go. And always keep in mind to get rid of those hairy insecure lines.

felt tip sketches

How to learn

This is coming from Sycra's latest video, the 5th in his Pointy Chins series where he's detailing his growth over the last few years and how he's accomplished it:

He's been doing essentially the multiple reiterations method I did for designing swords, only he's been using it to find his own particular approach for figure drawing and shape language.  Basically whenever he realizes he's not very good at something in particular - like drawing the body from a certain angle or in a certain pose, he then launches into drawing it for a few days, over and over, making slight changes in his method until it starts to look good.

And I love the thing he said at one point - that when he feels defeated and just wants to throw up his arms and say "Oh crap - I can't do this!" he instead thinks "I'll bet Sinix can do this.. " and that spurs him to further effort and often breaks him right through the block. It's a sort of self-shaming through imaginary competition, so he doesn't actually compare notes with the other person, but he imagines the humiliation of it and also the triumph he would feel in being able to surpass him, or at least how good it would feel to NOT suffer that humiliation. This is what I call competition/camaraderie - it can either be explicit, done by literally comparing notes with somebody, or implicit, by using an imagined version of them, which seems to be just as effective (maybe more so because the real person doesn't always react the way you imagine he would, and you might not be able to get in contact with him when you want to).

He mentioned a book called The Art of Learning that I considered getting, but according to the Amazon reviews it's more of a biography about how this one guy learns and doesn't really go into much detail about how you can do it except in the introduction. But the author is both a chess champion and martial arts black belt who says when he encounters a problem he doesn't see it as an obstacle but as a potential boost instead. It's good to learn where your weaknesses are so you can then work on them more. He also said when he is learning for instance a new punch he practices it until he's got it down perfectly before moving on, where-as the less proficient practitioners just get it good enough, and then the kicks good enough, and the blocks good enough, etc. Practice via repetition, but making sure you've got the correct form worked out rather than practicing bad form. Until you've got it perfect. Then move on to the next thing. And a few days  later, practice that former move again for a while, drill it to keep it from fading out of your memory. You have to keep doing that with each thing you learn until it's embedded firmly in your subconscious. And even then you can't let your skills go unused too long or they get rusty and you need to practice for a long time again to get them up to par.

Finding the right tools for the job - think in ink

Funny story behind this one - I had drawn it originally with a rollerball pen I believe, something with a thin scratchy line anyway - it looked terrible and I felt the need to scribble to build up some boldness. I was getting pissed off and figured I was either going to fix it or destroy it, and my weapon of choice was the black Tombow. I was actually leaning toward destroy, but thought it might be fun to turn it into a coloring book drawing first, with fat unchanging lines everywhere and too-smooth curves. It wasn't until I had drawn both arms that I suddenly noticed I wasn't destroying it - in fact it looked ridiculously good!! Pft wtf- when I try to draw good I suck, but when I try to screw it up I fix it??!! I suppose it's because drawing fat with the Tombow created smooth simple curves, and that's what you're supposed to use for gesture. The crazy part is how many hairy scribbly wrong lines that fat line covers! 

So I decided to do more gesture sketches with it. Timed sketches - something I haven't done in ages now, and I know I need to get back to them. These in an 11 x 14 sketchpad.

I really love the way I can draw with a smooth felt tip brush pen like the Tombow - it has the perfect combination of fast ink flow and control with the ability to go thick or thin at a whim, and the tip isn't too flexible. But I felt like these are a little too bold and black,so for tonight I decided to switch to the Petit3- still my favorite drawing implement, but that I haven't fund the right venue for yet.

I don't know - it's good, but it feels a little thin at times. I seem to have overcome that toward the end - was I holding it on edge? I think so. I also want to try using the small end of the Tombow, and then the big brush tip on newsprint. I have high hopes for both. I suspect when I find exactly the right tool for these gesture I'll bust through to a new level. When the pen actually assists me rather than fighting me it allows me to think in ink - fast and on the fly.

I notice looking back over these though none of the new ones have that fat simplicity of the top one. Must get it back..

I decided to order the female torso sculpture from Phillipe Farout, even though I had looked at it before and decided against it - it's in almost exactly the same pose as the life size plastic mannequin torso, but it has far better definition and you can see the muscles and forms clearly (not TOO clearly). Here's drawing #1 done from it, on newsprint in 6b charcoal pencil. Looking forward to a long and rewarding relationship with it...

And I finally gave in the the temptation to try to draw just like Kevin Chen. In fact I copied some of his stuff. Maybe it'll rub off.. ?

reconsidering pens

 

Knowing what I now know about wet pens and how they behave, and in spite of what I said at the end of the last post about being a dry pen guy, I decided to go back and try a couple of pens I had so to speak written off..

Starting with the above, done with my first fountain pen, the Pen&Ink Sketch Extra Fine. In some ways I like it, it does handle somewhat more like a ballpoint, but I had forgotten how often it stops drawing and needs to be scribble-cleared, fussed with, de-clogged, and occasionally opened up and checked. I notice in spite of all this high-mainteneance gobbldygook though it made quite a nice drawing in many regards. Came back in later and finished it up with the Pilot Precise Grip rollerball for a similar look and a wetter line but no trace of high maintenance BS. If I could get one of those P&I pens to work smoothly for any length of time I'd have a possibly perfect pen. 

In reaction against all the trouble I switched to Copics and Tombows for this, plus a bit of waterbrush wash. Very nice as well. Much more controllable. 

Switched to the cool little Pilot Petit3, the dwarf brush pen that I love like no other because the nib is the perfect size and stiffness. It allows me to draw just like with a felt tip but get totally controllable line thickness. It's not as black as the Copics and not waterproof at all, but great for gestures. Tombows don't seem to smear it. Finished with the Copic BM for darker heavier outlines. 

.. And finally I just decided what the hell - time to bust out the Falcon. I just have this feeling that when I learn how to handle it it's going to be the best pen I have. And the rollerballs have been something of a training tool for it. I tested and dispelled a myth that had lodged itself in my mind about it too, which was inhibiting me - this notion that I need to keep it moving constantly and at a good speed so it won't make big ink blobs. It doesn't. I can stop with it on the paper and draw slowly, whatever I want really. So some of the problems with it were just in my head, if not all of them. 

On a similar front, I've had a brainstorm and decided to order some extra-fine rollerballs for doing the initial gesture marks. I'm starting to feel really good about all these pens. 

Wet Line and Libyan Sibyl study

Ok now I understand why I can't draw with the Falcon. It has a wet line, just like the Uniball Precise Grip I drew this with (in conjunction with the good old Tombow markers of course). It's a rollerball pen, and that's their whole thing - they're designed to lay down a nice juicy wet line like a fountain pen. You need to keep the point moving - if you park it in one spot you'll get a spreading blob (or so I hear, haven't tried it), and you can't really affect line thickness or darkness. If you press hard it does get a little bit thicker but that's the extent of it - none of the precise control you get with a dry pen like a ballpoint, a felt tip or the Pen& Ink fountain pens, which are known for drawing very dry.

So now I know - I'm a dry pen guy.

Anyway, after reading that about how Michelangelo revolutionized dynamism and created the lineage of the dynamic artists, including Tiepolo, Bridgman, Hogarth, Frazetta, and pretty much all of the heroic fantasy and superhero guys, I wanted to try a gestural copy of one of these complex twisting figures.

How I plan to approach construction

After finally absorbing the entire Realism versus Construction thread and sleeping on it twice now, I have a pretty clear idea of what I want to do - my own take on it all.

I'm going to proceed along the lines basically laid out by Vilppu (and this agrees with some of what people were saying on the thread too) -

'You don't measure - never measure, just draw the forms as accurately as you can and as you go forward you'll get better at it and proportions will fall into place.' (this is an approximation of what I've heard Glen say)

I don't intend to get into all the complex sub-construction, at least not now. Who knows later?  What I find works for me (for now) is a pretty simple construction, built from the gesture and done very gesturally - a curve to the arms and legs etc, draw them as modified cylinders, tapering where appropriate, but with boxy forms where appropriate too, like for the knees and wrists.

I do think I need to learn head construction, and will probably develop a technique for gestural torso construction to keep from screwing up the connection between ribcage and pelvis. This all essentially means I'm going to continue exactly as I was already planning to - doing head construction studies and a lot of gestural figure drawings, both with and without reference, without any measuring.

I really like the idea that the old masters didn't do construction, though they doubtless did learn to draw the geometric solids from any angle in any light and were trained to think in those terms, to at least visualize simple construction. But I'm not averse to doing construction if I'm having trouble figuring out some parts.

I do know that in the 80's, before I knew much about anatomy or figure drawing, but I was well versed in perspective and the basic tubes and cubes construction, I was able to draw pretty decent (anatomically wrong) figures with little to no construction. Usually all I needed was a shoulder-to-shoulder line to start off, and in fact that was generally the first line I would make, it gave direction to everything else and set the scale. I was able to visualize how the figure would fit (close anyway) and draw the body parts basically without construction. But now, knowing what I've learned since then, I'll probably start with gesture lines.

Of course this is only a working proposition, subject to change at any time, and whatever emerges from actual practice takes precedence over preliminary plans, which are often so far off the mark..