Uku Kivisild
UK
Started learning and practicing in January (2021) but always drew for fun before that without any formal education. No career plans, just enjoy art.
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Uku Kivisild
•
4yr
added comment inErik and Meadow Gist AMA - Illustration & Fine Art
Hi Erik and Meadow, I am a big fan of your art and the Watt's Atelier online lessons.
How should someone learn to draw to a professional standard when time is a limiting factor as they are full-time employed in something unrelated to art? - I spend 10-20 hours a week still on art so time management isn't the issue.
Also, If knowing that I am doing the right type of learning is the problem, would mentoring be the only way to ensure you are learning the right thing?
PS. Kristian or whoever reads this question is a bae!
•
4yr
What she said, she's very smart
Meadow Gist
4yr
I think that 10-20 hours is very good amount of time to spend drawing. It is always best to be consistent. When I was a student, I had a studio painting going at all times. Some days I would not be able put much time into it, but other days I had more. In the end, I sometimes spent a month to 2 months on a painting. They were overworked, but I really learned a lot. It helped me be more time efficient in the long run. A good break up of study is always helpful-for instance, doing shorter studies-like 20 minute head lay-ins for a few weeks, and then a 20 hour long head drawing. Everything works towards the long goal. Mentoring can be a really good way to get over a hurdle in your process. I think it is a good way to get some insight and outside perspective on where you may want to invest your studies.
Uku Kivisild
•
4yr
I love this lesson and have come back to it many times now. I keep struggling with the ellipse and getting it to look in perspective. If anyone has any good tips on how they work on getting ellipses correct then I would love to know.
Hi Steven,
I draw for fun and don't plan to do it for money, but recently I have gotten so into learning and improving that I don't 'draw for fun' but I still have fun practicing...is this wrong? Do I need to also have my own project? I don't feel I have enough time to really commit to both practice and play.
Also, I have time anxiety because I am 24, started learning to draw in January and want to get good before I have kids. I am scared.
Hi Irshad,
do you think it is more important to progress through classes and not stay stuck on each one for too long
or
getting to grips with a topic before moving on? and why?
It also applies to learning the figure since I struggle to move on from gesture but I have decided to progress anyway and just keep coming back to it.
•
4yr
So in my experience, when we're introduced to a new topic, or we're reintroduced to an old topic after a while, we tend to pick things up very quickly. As soon as it starts to get stale, as soon as we just stare at the same thing constantly, the efficiency with which we learn diminishes quite a bit.
Long story short, I wouldn't stay stuck on the same thing for far too long. That doesn't mean you can't visit it regularly - one of the most important things when learning figure drawing is literally just mileage, but if *all* you're doing day in day out is figure drawing sketches, then that might not be the most efficient approach.
So yeah, I strongly support the idea of learning a concept, continuing forward, then circling back regularly to continue practicing it while continuing forward. A good example of this in Drawabox is the concept of texture. We have students tackle it in Lesson 2, but then students have the option of pursuing the 25 texture challenge... which is *literally* just one of the texture exercises done 25 more times - but I encourage them to do this in parallel with the rest of the course, rather than all at once.
Here's one I critiqued today, which shows their progress over the course of *many* months: https://imgur.com/a/qUAmmaX
Hi Siqi, I feel the same as a lot of people here and have found that trying to do too much has given me 'time anxiety' where I see every minute I am not doing something as being wasted.
I got serious with my art practice in January and since then trying to fit it into my 55 hour work week (food industry) resulted in me spending all my free time drawing or thinking about drawing. I would recommend try to catch yourself early if you start worrying about every minute going by and just try to enjoy the learning process without too much thinking about whether you are doing enough.
Also, I feel I am better at giving this advice than listening to it because it has been a struggle to deal with the stress but find what works for you.
In terms of art goals, I also think since your practice time is limited, the best thing to do is establish what you most enjoy about art and other artists and what you want to do with it... You won't be able to learn everything because you'll likely become meh at all of it rather than really good at the one thing you actually enjoy.
Again that is easier said than done, I still want to do everything perfectly but I am going to just accept I am not going to have time to draw perfect city scenery in perspective because my focus is faces and figures. I am not going to learn concept art because I just want to draw for fun not for a living..etc. Once you figure out a goal it will hopefully be easier to make big steps towards them without getting distracted by everything else around you, which will in turn save you probably years in the long run.
Sorry to ramble, hope it makes sense and don't get time anxiety like me!
Hi Uku, fellow traveller! Thank you for sharing! 55 hours is really a lot and kudos to you for keeping up the art practice despite those long hours!
You make a good point about enjoying the process rather than going for the outcome. That's always a balance in any endeavor and I'm sure it'd be a struggle even if we had all the time in the world to draw.
I've also thought about art goals, and I felt the pressure to specialize so I can become good at one/a few specific things, as you suggested. However, I'm currently exploring a bunch of things and maybe in the future I'll settle on a few more specific things. I've also been thinking about whether I just want to focus on the process and draw for fun forever (in which case, it doesn't really matter if I don't become great at producing outcomes), or whether producing really good art is what matters to me. Only time and experience will tell!
Denis C.
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4yr
Asked for help
Tried applying the lesson to a similar shape - changed it some to see whether I understood the concepts. All feedback is welcome.
Hi Denis, it looks really good. If you had a quick sketch of this shape with contour lines similar to what Steven had in the video then it would be clear if the shading is correct.
For example, if the shape is meant to be rounded on top then the bit in the middle looks flat to me since there is a sharp edge between the light and dark.
Otherwise it reads well as an organic shape so good job.
@fooze
•
4yr
Asked for help
The first one i drew along the video. Couldn't get the values right because i only have 2b mechanical pencils :( Feedback/Critiques would be greatly appreciated!
They look good, definitely starting to see the 3D form. Joao's feedback on shading is good so I won't mention that but I would recommend visualising it as a 3D object and try to focus on the lines that will make it look 3D without shading. To do this you can focus on finding lines that overlap in a way that shows what is in-front and what is behind.
On the 3rd one for example try to make it clear how the top lid has thickness by ignoring the eyelashes for now and showing the bottom plane and top plane, how they wrap around the eye and same for the bottom lid. Shading makes more sense after that.
I have attached a pic of some eyes I recently drew, they're not perfect and I am working on it myself but I think you can see the top and bottom lid wrap around the eye ball on it.
The grey scale is a good exercise (I did it with 2B mechanical pencil all the way to the lightest shade) so just practice that and you'll be golden. Each box try to get an even shade, rub out any dark spots and darken up the light spots. The darkest dark as a rule of thumb you never get dark enough so keep making it darker even if you think it is dark. and then make sure each shade is different from the ones next to them.
Arthur Cardoso
•
4yr
Nice studies Uku!
As you said the first one looks a bit off, specially the forehead shadow, wich is too vertical and straight, as well as the shadow on the neck wich feels unatural maybe because of the "inserstion" you made it in the jaw.
The 3rd photo looks fantastic apart from some perspective issues like Steve pointed out, and the ear seems small compared to the rest of the facial features, this can be avoided by drawing a line between the eyebrow and the nose, to place the ear.
The 4th photo is also very nice, but the shadow of the cheekbone is pushed too far right, I don't have the reference models you were using but I belive it should be closer left.
Keep up the great work!
Great feedback, I didn't notice the ear being small but you are right. Without this feedback I would probably keep not noticing these things so I really appreciate you putting in the time to help me. Thanks.
Steve Lenze
•
4yr
Hey Uku,
these are awesome! you have some good skills. The forth drawing is really nice!
I did have some thought on the first and third drawings that I hope could help you. I did a draw over to show you what I was thinking. Keep up the drawing, these are really good :)
Hi Steve,
Thanks a lot for the great feedback, I can really see what you mean now and definitely have my eye on it now. The perspective issue I am surprised about since I drew the lines before hand but I think I drew the features ignoring the lines that were there (clever me).
1st image I was not very happy with and so the next 3 are of me working on edges at the 2 value stage. Critique and tips on where the edges look odd or lost the rolling form effect would be much appreciated. Obviously any other issues point them out too (like angles of eyes or feature placements looking odd). I can already tell the 4th one isn't 2 values since I focused too much on the eyes and made them darker than the rest of it but that's OK, just a reminder to step back a bit more.
If anyone is interested then these drawings are for the Watts Atelier Head Drawing Fundamentals lessons so still a ways to go with these. Still getting used to charcoal and Wolff's carbon pencils.
PS: my phone camera makes some images super contrasted and others really dark even though all were taken at same time so sorry about that.
