Category: 10k Art Project

This card is from Pypah Santos’s book on drawing faces.

I haven’t done a full lesson in a long time because I’m stuck on how to draw heads and faces. I keep looking at videos and books for something that resonates with me. This approach from Pypah seems fairly good, but it’s a real struggle. I had to trace over photographs to get a feel for the shapes and proportions. My instinct with the proportions is off, so I think I need more practice with tracing until I get a feel for things. I can also do tracings of the art I like to get a sense of how others artists are working this. I am not going for realism, so I don’t feel like learning anatomy will help, I just need a quick way to break things down and find a style I can live with for now.

Next time I will start with tracing heads from photos and from other artwork. I’ll use this method and also try loomis again just to see what works best for me.

Photoshop using Huion tablet.

I did about 60 minutes of practice. This is a sample of the drawings I made.

This card is from Proko Loomis Head Video.

This lesson is about the classic head proportion guideline from Loomis. I started the next SVS Gesture class, but didn’t have a good framework for faces and really got stuck on that. Now that I have some idea of proportions, I feel like I can continue with the gesture class. This will be something that I need to keep learning and practicing on, but I needed some kind of approach first. This is the first time I have even tried faces, so it’s rough but I’m pretty happy with it.

Next time I will do even more practice, then try a 3/4 view

Procreate app on iPad.

I did 30 minutes practice following along with videos and then 30 minutes to complete this image.

This card is from SVS Figure Drawing for Illustrators.

This lesson is about pulling everything together, adding shading and making the final figures. The emphasis is on going through all the steps and not just jumping in and drawing. By doing all the steps, the gesture has more life and is in better proportion and has good enough anatomy. It’s also ok for this lesson to draw over the photo, which is what I did here. It still took me a full hour to draw two figures using this method. But these are the best gesture drawings I have ever done. It’s very approachable and makes for good believable drawings.

Next time I will do two or three more traced drawings, then after that switch to hand drawn.

Photoshop using Huion tablet.

I did 60 minutes to complete this image.

This card is SVS Figure Drawing for Illustrators.

This lesson is about the key landmarks of a figure and how to work them into your drawing. Instead of doing a lot of anatomy, we are just learning some key things to look for in a figure. Since we are drawing simplified figures, it’s just enough anatomy to get you going. The first part of this exercise is just a simple figure with labels of the landmarks, then we trace over some figures and do some of our own.

Next time I will work on keeping my lines lighter. I keep saying it, and it’s just hard to do. Maybe I need to work with a pencil with more pressure sensitivity.

Photoshop using Huion tablet.

I did 30 minutes practice and then 30 minutes to complete this image.

This card is SVS Figure Drawing for Illustrators.

This lesson is about adding simple structure of tapered cylinders to the figure. But, keeping in mind to do all the other steps first. This lesson is hard for me, it’s taking me a lot of time. I think because it’s new, but also it’s a lot to try to think about. I also think I need to time myself on these so I can speed them up a little.

Next time I will time myself and try some of my other post references. Also, take a break half way through, it helps me stay more fresh and motivated.

Photoshop using Huion tablet.

I did about an hour to complete this image.