Mike O'Sullivan
Nebraska
40 year old multi medium painter trying to tighten up my skills.
Activity Feed
Mike O'Sullivan
•
3yr
added comment inPortrait pictures
Check out redditgetsdrawn. I have gotten a lot from there.
Mike O'Sullivan
•
3yr
I'm Michael, I'm from Omaha, Nebraska. I've done art for over 20 years, but never made a full career out of it. I'm a chef by day and a dad to two boys, and I do some gallery work and art fairs. I have had my biggest commercial success with live caricature. I'm currently at a place where I have time carved out for my art and enough money to get more education, so I'm throwing myself back in.
I've worked in digital, watercolor, ink, marker, colored pencil, acrylics, spray paint and oils, and I try to keep a good balance of mediums in order to learn from each. I've done very little in the way of 3d, but I want to reacquainted myself.
Having time carved out for your art is the first big battle, and you've won! Kudos!
Hi @Mike O'Sullivan 😁 welcome! Very cool caricatures - is that one with the hat from red dead redemption?
Mike O'Sullivan
•
3yr
I got the curriculum from Reddit user Radiorunner, posted on here, actually, then used Notion to start adapting it to my needs. Having a place for feedback is important, which is one reason I'm so excited about this site!
I've been doing art for a while, so I'm using it to work on my weaknesses, but also take my strengths to higher levels. All the while experimenting to push my artistic development. I think its important to document your own reflections about the work you do too. I'm glad I found a good framework, because I tend to veer into something for way too long, and only do what I like to do. Also, having something laid out makes it so I don't have to stress about the next step each time I finish something.
It is amazing how many resources are available. I use Schoolism, Proko, books, Gumroad classes, anything that pushes me further. Hope this helps.
Mike O'Sullivan
•
3yr
I'm 40 with two boys, 5 and 10, and I share custody of the older one. I've managed to carve out enough space and time to still have a side job doing gallery work and live caricature, and now I'm doing outdoor art fairs. It'd totally possible, though it's hard in those early baby days. Don't lose heart, find inspiration wherever you can, and hopefully you have a supportive coparent. Don't compare yourself to other artists,its your journey!
The early baby days are so hard! 13 days in today and I have barely thought of touching a pencil! Hopefully I will before Christmas!
Congratulations to Stan and everybody at Proko for creating this wonderful community.
I'm Kyle, and I work at Adobe on several projects: helping to build Adobe Fresco, creating educational content for illustrators and artists at Adobe Live, and making custom brushes for the official Adobe brush library. Nice to meet you all.
Mike O'Sullivan
•
3yr
Asked for help
A couple of quick animals breakdowns. This is an area that needs improvement, not so much seeing in 3d, but breaking down animal anatomy.
Asked for help
Here are two sessions I did with the bean. The pictures go newest to oldest. I feel like they get stronger as I go. This exercise really helped with some artwork I'm doing for myself right now. As you can see, I did try and indicate the rest of the gesture in some of these. Let me know where I can improve.
Mike O'Sullivan
•
3yr
Asked for help
Here's my second round, I think I'm getting closer to the mark. It really it a challenge for me to simplify.
•
3yr
really nice work! To simplify a bit more try to use one flowing S curve for the leg when it is possible. Like in the image attached we can use this single S curve in place of the two lines for the front of the extended leg. We got that CSI to indicate that one leg. Hope that helps.
These look nice. You are capturing the pose and some motion well. I think you can definitely reduce the amount of lines you are using on each limb. A good way to see how little you can use is to pause the video on Prokos finished ones and copy a few of them. Watch how much stuff he leaves out. Copying masters is a great way to learn. You are certainly on the right track.
Asked for help
I have watched the videos on The Bean a couple of times and have practiced the methods discussed over the past few days. Please let me know of anything that I could do in order to improve. If I were to give some self feedback, it feels like that I am repeating the same thing over and over again. However, I feel like that I just have to look for a more diverse range of poses. I have included dates and numbers of the beans so that they can be commented on individually.
The first piece of advice I would give is to draw through on your ovals lightly, then darken the bean outline. Drawing through will help your draftsmanship. Keep up the good work!
Mike O'Sullivan
•
3yr
Asked for help
Okay, I'm revisiting Gesture drawing to improve my skill! Would love any feedback. A note on these, they go in reverse order. The latest ones were after I rewatched Stan's videos, and I focused on efficiency. The ref was Croquis Cafe.
Hi Mike!
Don't think about the shape of your body just yet, that is not the purpose of the exercise.
Now you have to think about identifying the movement of the body, the gesture.
You need to be able to represent a schematic version of the body in motion with as few lines as possible because you may find yourself having to fix an impression in a few seconds.
As you have already been told, only use CSI lines.
Find the main line of action, the one that runs through most of the body determining the main movement and pose.
On this line locate and mark the shoulders and pelvis with two segments: take into account pose and slope, this way you will have enough information to define the torso pose.
On the shoulders and pelvis insert arms and legs using curved and schematic C- or S-shaped lines.
Try to draw short poses so that you are forced to use as few lines as possible and learn to be less influenced by the shape.
As Dylan said you should try to focus more and the flow of the figure using only CSI lines. The point of the exercise is really to get a good understanding of the movement. Which is hard to do actually !
Keep up the good work :)
Hi Mike, I would do more of these without using any contour lines. Doing flow lines only helps to see the motion of the pose and trains your eye to see the overall flow and force.
