Alyss Erulisse
Houston, Texas
I'm a creative writer branching into visual storytelling.
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Alyss Erulisse
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9mo
added comment inWarmup - Mushrooms
Asked for help
Here is my second attempt at the mushrooms. I am still experimenting with the pencil tool in Photoshop. I figured out that when using opacity with pressure sensitivity, ultimately the value will build up to but not exceed the selected swatch.
I find I have much less coordination on the slippery angled surface of the graphics tablet than I do on paper. I tend to hold more tension in my hand and shoulder in order to control the slipping of the stylus. Meanwhile, the side of my hand sticks to the surface, so that if I use it as support, I can only draw from my wrist. Has anyone working with digital managed to overcome this? What is the weird glove that Stan wears?
@moonidraws
7mo
I use a drawing glove to let my hand slide across the tablet screen, otherwise it sticks and it’s hard to draw with my arm. Wacom tablets are a bit less sticky for me though, so on them I don’t really need a glove as much. I’ve also heard there are textured screen protectors for tablets that simulate the texture of paper.
@cloudhopper
9mo
"The Drawing Glove prevents your resting fingers and palm from transferring oils or moisture to the drawing surface while keeping your drawing fingers free to comfortably grip your pen." I think it's mostly for digital so that you don't get extra marks from your hand...Would love to know more, too
Alyss Erulisse
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9mo
Asked for help
Here is my first attempt at the mushrooms. I started out with too much pressure, and then my previous ellipse experience kicked in and I remembered my shoulder and ghosting technique. I realize a light touch is good for a preliminary sketch, but should I be adding some more weight to the lines in this exercise? I have a direct light on the page for my photo, and I used an HB pencil and one of my new blue col-erase pencils. I really like the feel of the col-erase pencil on the page; it tends to grip more instead of slide, so I feel I have more control.
Those are looking much better than mine. I think they're coming along real well. Yeah, I found this exercise harder than what it looks. I'm spending about 10 minutes each day to get better control of my pencil. I'm trying to develop my hand and brain coordination.
Alyss Erulisse
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9mo
This is my second attempt after watching the demo. I used the pencil tool in Photoshop and tried to duplicate the method I was using on paper. The way that the shade build up felt very different. I used a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer to temporarily darken my strokes so I could better see what I was doing with the lighter values, but I took this off at the end. I really struggled to simplify the complex shadow shapes on this pear, especially the darkest values.
Alyss Erulisse
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9mo
This is my attempt after watching the demo. I used 6B, 4B, 2B and HB pencils this time around. I also used guide lines again to help me with proportions. I used the tripod grip this time and sharpened my pencils with something better than a razor blade and sanding block. I tried out Stan’s Blackwing Sharpener, which is SO much better than my previous sharpening tools, and I used less pressure in my strokes this time, layering to build up the dark areas.
I think I found the meditative part of drawing: shading. It does eat my time though. I think I took twice as long on this drawing as I did on the one before. If this took me 2 hours, should I try to speed things up? I don’t want to fall into perfectionist mode.
Alyss Erulisse
•
9mo
Asked for help
This is my first attempt before watching the demo. I used 6B, 4B, HB and 2H pencils. I used some guide lines to help me with proportions. I can see from the beginning that I did not really get the correct length between all the guide lines. I also struggled with simplifying the shadows into 2 values and fought against the urge to smooth the edges into gradations to use more than the limit of 5 values.
I mostly used the overhand grip for shading as it sped up the process considerably. A question came to me about the direction of my strokes. What is a good way to lay them down? All in the same direction? Back and forth? Parallel with the long edge of the shape? It is quite difficult to fill in thin shapes with shorter strokes while maintaining clean edges.
Alyss Erulisse
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9mo
Asked for help
It is my first day practicing my drawing in a long while. Sadly, I struggle to stay consistent in my practice because of neural dysregulation and perfectionistic tendencies that push me to repeatedly burnout. My drawing will slow to a crawl as I over-focus, and I'll suffer some combination of boredom and frustration that makes it hard to show up the next day. If I'm not disappointed with the results of my practice, I can end up holding them so precious that I can't touch the rest of the notebook in fear I'll somehow damage them. It is exasperating, and my first goal is to get out of my own way and make drawing something I enjoy. I'd love to know how to make it the meditative practice Stan says it can be.
I used to do that with sketchbooks--draw a good drawing then get scared of "ruining" the book. It's a normal fear a lot of artists have gone through.
Ming Cho Lee (a famous theatre and opera designer, way before your time; head of Yale's very prestigious theater design program) had the same fear of perfection. He used to sketch on yellow legal pads so he wouldn't take his drawings so seriously.
I used to use printer paper for the same reason. It's cheap and you only have to think about one page at a time.
I also find col-erase pencils (I use indigo, but a lot of artists I know prefer different colors. I think Stan said he likes red for preliminary drawings in one of the videos.) take the edge off for some reason. And, if you like a drawing you start, you can finish it off with pencil (or ink), take a picture, and drop out the initial col-erase lines.
Also, I usually start a drawing session by doing something simple and fun, and that I don't care about messing up. Stan's "Mario mushrooms" warmup (the last video in "Getting Started") is a blast. Super silly, funny when I mess something up, and at the same time the whole page tends to look kind of cool.
