In this video you will learn how to utilize surface planes to create more dimension within your portrait drawings. Every artist who wishes to get better at drawing portraits should go through the exercise of drawing surface planes.
No drawing the technique itself won’t make your drawings look pretty. But understanding the concept of surface planes and form most certainly will.
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Thanks so much for watching. Now get out there and draw something today. It will make you feel better.
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If I had to use one word to describe Anna, it would be “Drawaholic”. Wow Anna has such a strong work ethic for such a young student. It was such a pleasure to have Anna in class. She has since changed her major. She is now in the 3-D Computer Animation department. We all miss her a lot.
As you can see in the sketchbook video what I love most about Anna is her willingness to experiment. I mean heck if you don’t experiment in foundation year of college when will you? Some artist’s are born with a style while others have to seek it out through drawing in different styles. It’s quite difficult to seek out a style. I’ve always had one style, I’ve always loved realism. I consider myself lucky just having to experiment with different mediums.
What Anna is doing in her sketchbook takes guts. You have to be willing to fail. You have to be will to take chances. Putting in the time to see if a drawing style clicks with you. I think what Anna discovered in her sketchbook in that she draws really slow. I saw that for myself in class. I believe that is what encouraged her to switch into the computer animation department. To be a traditional animator you have to draw fast. Now you can always train yourself to draw faster. But the question is do you want to?
I don’t really think Anna enjoyed drawing fast. You can just see that Anna loved hanging out with her art. She loves hanging out for long periods of time just getting lost in the details of her drawings.
That totally speaks to me. That is the reason why I love being an artist. Just hanging out in my studio listening to music and getting lost in the details of my work.
How about you, do you have a style? Do you like to draw fast or slow? What do you love about drawing?
To become a successful artist you have to have clear answers for these difficult questions.
I want to thank you for taking the time to view Anna’s sketchbook video.
Remember you cannot force a style, you have to be patient giving it time to develop through lot’s of pencil mileage. Just like Anna:)
Okay so you are struggling with drawing correct proportions. Maybe when you draw the figure the head is two big, or the legs to long. Frustrating I know, trust me.
Through many bad figure drawings I learned that it is best to see the figure in three simple shapes.
1. You should consider starting with the biggest part of the body, the torso. Don’t get all hung up on drawing the head first. Remember there is no one way to draw the figure. Every pose you draw presents a new problem to solve. You choose the best technique to solve the problem.
2. The second shape is truly up to you. I like to draw the legs together first. Again we are going for big shapes. It’s super important to connect the feet with an imaginary line. Doing so closes the second shape. The legs should start at the top of the butt. Basically the iliac crest of the pelvis.
3. The third shape completely depends on the pose. At this point I usually draw in the shape of the hair and face together as one unit. You could also draw the models upper arm and lower arm together as an organic triangle.
All of the shapes you draw should be organic. Round all of the corners of every shape basically. There are no straight lines on the figure.
Practice this technique when ever you get the chance. This drawing technique can also be used when designing characters. Making them easy to draw in just about any pose.
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