[Bean] Am I doing this correctly?
4yr
@mrincongruous
Hello
Last week I posted asking about whether I was doing the Proko Figure Drawing Fundamentals' course gesture exercises correctly, and I got many answers giving feedback.
This week, I want to give the bean a try. I've made a few attempts, but they all look kind of the same to me. Any advice on how to get better at it?
Also, I'm worried if making a post asking for feedback once a week is too much, or is that within an acceptable range for this community? I'd hate to squander your goodwill by asking too many questions.
Thank you very much for your help!
I suggest you spend more time analysing the relation between pelvis and ribcage: is it a twist or a bend? When drawing these as beans, exaggerate this relation!
@mrincongruous I would study the nude figure for this exercise. It can be difficult to tell whats going on when they are wearing clothes and you don't have enough experience to disect whats going on. That being said, my biggest crit on these would be to watch your centerline. In general, follow the seem in the middle of the body that leads to the belly button for front poses, and the spine for back poses. Good job and keep going!
Thank you for your kinds words :) For good or ill, I'm going one week on each topic of the Fundamentals of Figure Drawing course by Proko, so I've already passed the Bean stage (though of course I don't think for a moment that I have mastered it or anything of the sort). I might get back to it later though.
Hello. Just a comment, I believe that you are making the exercise harder by choosing this kind of reference where the landmarks can not be seen clearly. This is Just my opinion, of course. Have a nice day!
The only thing I can tell is that those are way, way, waaaaaay better than mine.
Sorry, I'm a beginner :(
Hi there! Nice job so far!
I feel like your lines are a bit too messy, which makes the whole learning process a bit too hard. Especially in more gestural drawings like the bean, you need your lines to also be gestural.
The fix is pretty easy. Avoid chicken scratches. Instead of trying to search for a long, gestural line with smaller, messy ones, just use your entire arm to make a 'swoosh'. You can get used to it pretty quickly and it will help the clarity of your drawings immensely.
Keep up the great work!
Thanks for the words of support and the feedback ^_^
Today I tried to do the contours in one line rather than many, and this was the result. I hope this goes in line with your suggestion!
EDIT: Sorry, I misspoke, I tried to make each half of the bean in one line, not the whole bean in one line. Still, I consciously tried to avoid the "chicken scratches".
I love them! The purple really makes them pop! You could improve the form with a center line that mirrors the center of the body. For example, the first one, she's turned completely to the side, so the center line would also be there.
It might also be worth revisiting construction, like Making Things Look 3D - https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/structure-basics-making-things-look-3d/discussions
or knocking out a few lessons at Drawabox.
Keep it up, I'm looking forward to seeing more!!
Thank you very much for your words of encouragement ^_^
I started drawing as a self-imposed challenge a year and a bit more ago, going at it about 45 minutes/ an hour a day, just to see how far I could go, so I'm not coming at this as a 100% newbie.
I started going through the Figure Fundamentals course due to a syllabus mentioned in the Draftsmen show that goes through all of the fundamentals in about two and a half years, with references to free or inexpensive courses. The first section is the Figure Fundamentals course, which is why I'm going through the youtube videos. I think the next step is going through the first three lessons of Drawabox, so I'll get there eventually.
For the time being, however, I think I'll stay the course of that syllabus.
As an aside, I feel like the bean exercise has helped me improve my perception of human figures, even though I've only done it three times, which is extremely nice :D
Hey mrincongruous,
What Gabi said is absolutely correct. I thought I would give you some examples that might help you understand the whole "bean" thing. Also, it might help you to draw in the hole where the limbs would be to help you show the twist in the body. keep working on these it will really help your figure drawing.
Hope this and Gabi H comment helps :)
these are much better!
remember to think about these "beans" as 3D. think about where the weight is, look for the stretch and the pinch. I would suggest you try these poses out yourself and feel whats happening in your own body, it will help you feel the pose. also, try not to draw your centerline as perfectly straight, it will cause your drawing to look stiff. I did some beans to help you see what I mean.
Keep going, your starting to get it :)
Thanks for your reply! I think it's been useful (it makes the drawings less stressful to me), but I'm not sure I'm actually doing them better :/
I would recommend trying to focus on the bean as Stan’s metaphor to them being two balls in a sock. In all of your drawing you seem to have drawn the two balls separately, which makes them look like shapes rather than a form. Try to think of them as being in the sock, when one side stretch the other side gets squashed and wrinkles. Try to find the flow of the body with your lines. It ok to draw the two ball separate, but I think in the end should feel like it’s one form. One thing I do that helps me understand the assignments more is drawing the ones Stan does in his videos.
The other thing is that the center line of the beans is supposed to represent the center line of the body, whether it be the front (top of the sternum to the pubis for or less) and/or the back (the spine). It seems as though you’ve put it in the middle of each drawing (which is correct in some cases for example the last drawing) as opposed to using it to show the direction and gesture of the body.
As for asking question too often and disrupting others, there is no such thing! This is a learning community and I would think most people are glad to help! Although I will say usually Stan tells students to work on a lesson for at least two weeks and to make sure you have a good grip of things before moving on. But seriously don’t worry about asking questions Hope this helps!
Thanks a lot for taking the time to give me feedback, and apologies for getting back to you so late :(
For the next batch of beans I tried to follow your advice. I'm not sure if they're better or not (my eye isn't as trained as it needs to be, it seems), but I feel like the concept of the bean has helped me connect the dots very nicely, regarding the human figure :D
