Posts tagged as “Drawing Every Day”

If you want to get better at drawing, you really need to treat it like any other skill, and practice ahead of your performance. We may learn by doing, but you don't get enough learning time or variety just from actually performing the task. Basketball players need to cross-train in addition to shooting hoops - not just play games. Chess masters practice with coaches. Writers scribble in their notebooks. And artists sketch.

My horse drawing book was too big to fit in my bookbag, so today's exercise is from the cover of Drawing Hands and Feet by Ken Goldman.

-the Centaur

More practice from Foster's book. I was shy on time, so I didn't start with the proportions diagram, but with the parts diagram, and therefore the proportions of my parts are a bit off. But, it's a step.

-the Centaur

Drawn from a paused frame of "The Church on Ruby Road", the first full episode of the 15th Doctor.

-the Centaur

P.S. I apparently was wrong: I thought I had kept up Drawing Every Day for 103 days in 2021, but actually it was 205 days that started in late, late 2020, with a brief spurt in 2023. So this is the third time I've tried it! Best of luck Dr. Francis on beating your past winning streak.

Day 206, a sketch of Montgomery Scott from Star Trek: How ddid I do? Still can't seem to draw a correctly tilted head, and face to hair proportions continue to be off: Day 207, Nyota Uhura: Umn, well, it is the same person, sort of, but she's looking down, and the original, up: So, no real way to make these line up, but it isn't totally terrible: Day 208, Hikaru Sulu: Again, more or less the same person, but I made him look down, and what happened to his chin? Overall comparison cannot be made to line up: Day 209, Pavel Chekhov. I don't have the original reference on this computer, but I'm sure a comparison would be equally terrible to all the others, if not worsee. Drawing every day, posting when i get to it. -the Centaur  

The back of Cinnamon Frost, after a painting by my wife. Drawing every day, even if I wasn't posting. -the Centaur

Day 203: Damnit, Jim, I'm a sketch, not a headshot!

Let's see how I did:

Huh ... not entirely terrible, though it needed stretching horizontally.

What about Day 204? A quick sketch of Dakota Frost:

Day 205 apparently hasn't been cleaned up, so we'll return to that.

Drawing every day, posting when I get to it.

-the Centaur

Day 200 - Khaaan! Let's see how I did: Meh. Head not wide enough. Day 201 - Khan, the man himself: Day 202 - Spooock! Let's see how I did: As I recall, there was no good way to line up the face and the hair. Drawing every day. -the Centaur

Day 196: Quick sharpie sketch of Janeway, from the below image. The comparison is not great - the face is way too long compared to the original: Day 197, Sharpie over non-repro blue roughs, from the same image: Slightly better comparison this time, though still not perfect: Day 198 was Richard Branson ... in spaaace: That's from this fisheye lens image ... while it isn't perfect, it captures a lot of energy. I particularly like the smile in the reflection (in both my drawing, and in Branson's window - he's having fun!). No comparison this time; this exercise was in capturing the feel more than the precise lineup. Day 199 was Martin Sheen from The West Wing: Not an entirely terrible likeness ... ... but my perennial problem of having a face out of proportion to the head continues. Look at that hair, man. You can make the eyes and mouth line up, but that hair, man. Still, drawing every day. -the Centaur    

"No, sir. All thirteen!" Sketch of the iconic shot of Peter Capaldi's eyes from The Day of the Doctor, roughed with non-repro blue and sketched with Pigma Micron and Graphic pens. I've included the roughs below, color-enhanced, to show that process:

This one isn't a quick sketch, so, let's see how I did:

The eye shape is not terrible, though the one on the left of the drawing has a misshapen iris, and that weird tilt of the eyes with respect to the head is back, as you can see when the eyes and hair are lined up (below) - if those features line up, the cheeks are tilted, and v. v.:

It's instructive to compare this with the Sharpie sketch I did a while back:

Not bad, certainly bolder with the dark lines, but how does it compare? I worked from a brighter, if smaller picture last time, but did that help? I can already see the eyes are just the wrong darn shape:

The eyebrows are insufficiently Capaldi in both of them, not as exaggerated as his real-life eyebrows, and the older sketch shares the property that you can line up the cheeks (black, below) or eyes (white, below), but not both at the same time:

Didn't like how the re-sketch of yesterday's post was turning out, so I drilled in on the eyes, using non-repro-blue roughs (which you can see below).

I'm not happy with how I'm perceiving shapes; the eyes are too wide, and it can't just be chalked up to angle (look at the eye on the right of the drawing in particular). Also, my rendering is still off, as the iris on the left is misshapen from the rounded originals. Oh, and that tilt is back.

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

Quick Sharpie sketch of the famous "afghan girl" photograph. Not even going to do a comparison, as I messed up the shape of the face and there's no going back with the sharpies.

Still, drawing every day.

-the Centaur

A pretty crummy quick sketch of Peter Capaldi. Not sure where this one went wrong; there is no way to line this up with the original.

And the other drawing I'm working on had its own problems. Sigh.

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

A pretty crummy quick Sharpie sketch of Indiana Jones, if I do say so myself.

I was about 5-10% off stretched and 5-10 degrees off in rotation. Yes, yes, I know I was doing a quick sketch so I could have time to work on some other drawings I'm doing, but man, this was bad:

Still, it's drawing every day.

-the Centaur