Critiques wanted + How long do professional artists draw daily?
3yr
William Horton
I usually do the actual Figure drawing course for about an hour and 30 minutes every day after work, but on my days off I can go for like, 2 or 4 hours. 4 is really pushing it, though. I can draw my usual cartoony business for hours without breaking a sweat but learning traditionally as fun as it is really wears down on me after just a little bit. It's really fun though having those little "Ah Ha!" moments when I'm drawing and something clicks in my head from a previous lesson and I retain that knowledge. Anywho, these are the drawings I wanted critiques on. The woman I did just an hour before posting this, and the abs I did I think like, 4 or 5 months ago, before I bought the anatomy course. I'm sorry it's weird furry stuff, I can't help it. When I draw muscles normally it ends up looking really weird but if I draw furry stuff it comes out a lot better every time. Please help.
Hi, William,
First of all, I'd better tell you that I'm definitely not a pro artist! But your question grabbed my attention because it's something I feel like I'm also always seeking the answer to.
Maybe you've seen this article already, since it's the first to come up when you Google "How long should I draw a day," but it's one that's kind of stuck with me for a while: https://conceptartempire.com/build-a-sketching-habit/ Long story short, this author says 1-2 hours a day can get you some improvement but 5-6+ hours will get you there faster. For me this is hard to accomplish when I'm working at another job during the day. But maybe you're more resilient than me!
Another artist I was fortunate to meet told me to draw as long as my passion will fuel it, and that it's more about building hand and eye skills than it is about time.
I also stumbled on this piece of advice the other day from Drawabox founder Irshad Karim: he says that if you're doing the intense Drawabox program, you should spend half your time on the program and the other half on drawing whatever you want. He calls it the "50% rule": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUmyR2vy1Y4 So if you like drawing cartoons, maybe it could help you get through those 4-hour weekend sessions if you promise yourself a good chunk of time to draw cartoons afterward!
And so things don't get too confusing, the critique is going in a separate comment! Though I'm a beginner in a lot of ways, so take or leave my advice :)
First of all, may I say that I love the abs drawing! That guy's got so much character!
And great job on the woman, too. The overall gesture of her body looks nice and fluid to me. One thing I notice is her arm that's lifting up, where the gesture feels a little stiff. In the photo, to me, the hand seems to have an s-curve from the fingers to the palm, and the forearm has a bit of a c-curve created by the muscles on the edge. But maybe this is too many curves.
On the other arm, in the photo, it looks like her upper arm is going straight back, while in your drawing, it's harder to tell that this is so. But this is also hard to tell in the photo. If I were you, I would try to enhance this feeling of the arm going back in space by first drawing a very foreshortened cylinder for the upper arm and then drawing the forearm hanging off of that, mannequinization-style. Then I would go for the shading, keeping that upper arm cylinder in mind the whole time--even if it doesn't quite look like the photo. And overall, the proportions look great! Proportion has always been a rough spot for me, so I'm impressed :)
Keep up the work ethic! I admire your dedication to drawing!
