On Courses + Tools use code BLACK20
Grundini
Grundini
Earth
Activity Feed
Grundini
This is another figure study done with pastels. The shadows could probably be darker especially in the belly region and under the right arm. Also the head came out too small which happens quite often in my drawings. Furthermore the right foot is a bit weird. Nonetheless I like this piece. Once again feedback and critique is appreciated. :)
Grundini
I had another go at a figure drawing and also tried out some shading. Unfortunately I messed up the figure's size and placement on the paper and therefore decided to stop above the knees. Also the torso is squashed a bit. Apart from these things I'm quite satisfied with the outcome, especially since this is my first real attempt at this. As always feedback and critique is appreciated.
Demetrio Cran
Hi! It is hard to critique this detailed rendering! But I will try. Overall, I think that your are right to be satisfied, it is a great piece! Congrats! Maybe, next time, you might try to design big shadow shapes. I mean, to try to separate the shadow shapes from the light shapes right at the begining and, keep them separated till the end. For instance, I believe that the pectoralis is to light for being in the shadow family. What do you think?
Steve Lenze
Hey Grundini, These are all pretty good, especially the gesture, they don't feel stiff at all. I also think you have a pretty good handle on proportion and thinking about perspective. I think though there are some things that will help you, especially with perspective and a feeling of 3 dimension. The thing I think you could do is start to add some interior details to help show structure to your drawings. In particular areas that show corners to a form. These help make the form feel like it has sides, or planes to it. Also, look for areas you can overlap shapes to give the feeling of perspective to the shapes. This will also require you to use some interior details. In particular, think about how one form pushes into another form creating a pinch. This means the other side will be stretched and more simple. I did a quick draw over of some of your drawings to show you what I mean, I hope it helps :)
Grundini
2yr
Hello Steve, thanks a lot for your feedback and for providing these ideas. I'm going to try to include these things in my next attempts. Your suggestions a really helpful!
Grundini
Hey all, after a bit of a hiatus I went back to doing figure studies. Most of these are just sketches but I also started to test the waters with some rendering. I'm using polychromos pencils on newsprint paper. The latter is cheap and good for sketching but probably isn't the best paper for rendering. So I'll look into a better alternative for that. Feedback and critique is appreciated.
Grundini
I gave this a go and found the process quite interesting. I wonder how useful it is if I wanted to make a finished drawing of the last pose. At least as long as I don't work digitally I'll have to copy it from the transparent paper to drawing paper. Though I guess it's good for finding believable exaggerated poses nonetheless.
cathy hayes
I like the third drawing the best, I think because it seems the most dynamic. When I compare it to the original pose it seems a bit exaggerated which proko often recommends. I think your drawing is more dynamic than the actual pose. Just a thought
Christopher Beaven
I would love to help but I'm not clear on what your asking. Help me out :)
Liandro
Hey, @Grundini! Sorry to be catching up late, and good to know you already received helpful feedback from our fellows below! It’s great that you’ve taken the leap to start sharing your work (nicely done, by the way). I’ve taken a bunch of Schoolism classes myself in the past, but I didn’t take Craig Mullins’s, so I find it cool to see what kind of assignments you get to do in it. Overall, I think your paintings from the course look stunning! The army scene, in particular, it took me a while to realize it was your piece and not the reference. And the Sargent study looks flawless to my eye, beautifully done. The first portrait is a piece I find to be visually striking (to my taste, it is the best of the three). It’s stylized, so it leads us to not compare it so much with the reference and look more at the piece for itself. I think it works great in most aspects; the only area which I believe could use some more work is the background, I feel as if it is a bit underdeveloped. No sure exactly what could be done there, but I’d try experimenting and playing around with it a little to look for other ways of composing it. The second portrait looks really good too, although, when I look at its reference, I think the facial expression lost a bit of its uniqueness. In the painting, it looks like a strong severe expression, which is cool, but the photo reference has some quirkiness to the brows and the way he’s looking up that, to me, looks more like there’s a story being told, like he’s communicating with someone with the way he’s looking. Also, in the painting, I feel as if the area of the cheekbones and jaw could use a little more polish and softness - at least enough to match the quality of the soft edges you did for the drapes of the “crown” (is that how it’s called? Sorry) The third painting has a really good polish, strong composition and nicely defined head structure as far as I can see. In terms of likeness, I believe the jaw line could have been made just a bit thinner and more angled if you wanted it to match the model in the reference - but if likeness was not a goal, nevermind. :) For the long run, one thing I suppose you could look for would be perhaps to loosen up your brushwork a bit more. But take it easy, as this usually may come naturally over time and practice. In the paintings you did from imagination, I see there’s a lot of potential! I feel there’s a clear intention of design and storytelling in these images, and looks like you’re also being able to implement your knowledge of anatomy and form. This is all great, definitely keep it up! On the other hand, I think going for looser brush strokes would help make the overall feel of the work more vivid and expressive. And, mainly, see if it’s possible to start your planning of the painting by thinking strongly about gesture and composition - these two things are what I believe could benefit your personal work the most as next steps to focus on. Hope this helps. Keep up the good work! Best regards!
Grundini
3yr
Hi Liandro, thanks a lot for your feedback. I pretty much agree with your comments especially with the ones regarding gesture/composition and also the brushwork. I actually aim for looser brushwork but as I'm currently not very confident with my brushstrokes I tend to refine a lot until I find that it looks about right. I think this leads to the (in my opinion) too tight brushstrokes. This was very much the case in the personal pieces. I actually don't have a lot of knowledge about anatomy and therefore had too piece things together from looking at references. A lot of back and forth and refining of my initial painting then resulted in somewhat stiff looking brush strokes and characters. In the first two black and white paintings I actually like the brushwork much more. For these I had references and they were just exercises. Therefore I didn't care so much to get it "right" and this mindset led to more appealing brushwork. Unfortunately I'll have to put my drawing and painting a bit on the back burner because of upcoming work but I hope I'll be able to keep at it somehow nonetheless. Cheers :)
Grundini
Did a couple of sketches for this exercise and tried to figure out their centers of mass.
Jesper Axelsson
Hi @Grundini, nice studies! The placement of the center of mass looks pretty accurate to me. I scrolled through your profile and your figure drawings are all really well drawn, the structure is great for example. But they have lost the power and energy that you had in your gesture drawings. It would be great to see you bring that back in. I think you would really appreciate watching Mike Mattesi's force drawing series. He is very passionate about getting force and energy into drawings and I think he'll help you loosen up. Improving Line Quality and Rhythm – FORCE Series Part 1 Hope this helps :)
Grundini
Hey all. Made another attempt yesterday. Unfortunately ran out of space on the bottom of the page. As previously C&C is welcome. Thanks
@paper
3yr
Hey you improve!Your proportion on the leg is better and you still give the figure a 3dimensional volume to it. I guess if I were to give a critique,it's that your left arm and hips seemed to have shrunk.(Here's a solution I did that may help)It might be good for you to do more gesture drawing,focusing on proportion. But other than that,well done,please keep going and posting your progress!
Grundini
Another go at mannequinization. Looking forward to some feedback.
@paper
3yr
Hello Grundini,I agree with Laura,this drawing is pretty good,you made the body pretty structural and you gave the body a nice volume. Though I think what jumps out to me is that you made the joint into very flat shape (particulary the knee).It feels like you are strugling with foreshortening of the form(So I recommend practicing that more) Anyway here is my solution,for the joint,making it slightly more 3 dimensional.(I also made the left leg more foreshortned but I think you already notice that) Anyway I hope this was useful and not just stupid.
Laura Estrada
looks incredible!! great job! :D
@paper
Christoper Beaven made some really good point and pretty much said out most what I was thinking,so I try to not repeat what he already said. On the first painting,I noticed the head is slightly bigger than in the reference photo(but I can't tell if you zoomed in on the face and this was intentional,so feel free to tell me below),though the overall painting itself is drawn quite well.The second painting I really like,I think you had a healthy mixed of soft and hard edge. On the third painting,while I agree with Christoper that you made too many soft edge (I advised making the nose and the mouth more hard) but I actually advised making the left side chin softer (Kinda like how Leyendecker does it in this painting)or atleast make the value closer to the neck.I also advised making the area of the light a little bit lighter,as right now the value is a bit too close to the dark area (Here's a David Kassan for example of lighter value) The fourth painting is also really good,the photograph you use remind me of an Ilya Repin painting,though the actual color pallete you use remind me of this Mikhail Nesterov painting (Below).I advised making the ground darker, more like in the photograph.Because right now the ground value is too similar with the sky and it also make too much contrast with men in black suits. On your personal piece I think the one with mace has really good anatomy and you did well on the structure of his armor and body, but I found the gesture a bit too stiff (though that one may be subjective)I advised looking up Frazetta and studying some of his drawing to get a more dynamic feeling (though doing gesture studies is also good) I don't have much to say on the final painting,except that it's slightly too much to the left (Again,very subjective) Well that's all I have to say,I hope it wasn't too subjective and it was somewhat useful.I apologize if it wasn't too good.
Grundini
3yr
Hey Paper, the larger head in the first painting wasn't intentional and up to now I didn't even spot the difference. I'm pretty satisfied with the second black and white portrait. I think it is one of the stronger pieces of the bunch. The third painting was actually done with a technique where you start with very transparent and soft brushes. That's probably where the overall softness is coming from. I agree with your other comments as well, also with the ones on the personal pieces. So, thank you for the useful comments (be they subjective or not :) and also for providing the reference images. As I mentioned I probably won't continue working on these pictures but I think your feedback will also be helpful for future paintings.
Help!
Browse the FAQs or our more detailed Documentation. If you still need help or to contact us for any reason, drop us a line and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!