Drawing People

On December 3, 2019 By Dartmoor YarnsIn Drawing, Learning to Draw12 Comments

I’m sure if you spotted the pic of an artist’s mannequin on Sunday, you’ll have known it wouldn’t be long before I was posting my attempts to draw it.

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As usual I tracked down a few YouTube videos to help me find some tips, techniques and best approaches and scribbled along with them.

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I particularly liked the idea of drawing the top half of the body as a domed cylinder – this helped make the process of drawing the shoulders and getting the right angles on them much easier.

Over the next few days I tried to draw at least one pose a day.

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The idea is – apparently – that if you keep drawing the mannequin in different poses, you’ll:

Get better drawing the different perspectives.
Get the proportions/human form imprinted on your brain and therefore people become easier to draw.

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I’ve now set myself the goal of drawing a person every day for the next year. Hopefully at some point I’ll graduate from mannequins to something that looks more human. But don’t worry, I’m not going to post every single picture.

Until next time,

Bekki x

Drawing Faces

On November 28, 2019November 28, 2019 By Dartmoor YarnsIn Drawing, Learning to Draw, Uncategorized8 Comments

A couple of weeks ago I decided to learn to draw faces. First off I scribbled along with a YouTube video and learned to draw faces looking in different directions.

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After watching a few more YouTube videos, I followed their general instructions to draw a larger face. The result was okay, but not realistic.

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I was particularly unimpressed with the nose, so decided that was the part of the face to start learning to draw better first. Watching more videos, and reading a few tutorials too, I attempted to draw some noses.

The key to drawing a nose is that most of it’s shading. However, despite the nose videos and tutorials, and also having watched a few shading videos, I still was very unhappy with my noses.

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Recognising that I never intended to be a portrait artist anyway, I gave up, thinking I’d just wasted a couple of hours.

A few of days later I had a go at drawing some fairy faces with easier noses. This also involved exploring a little about drawing hair.

After that I decided to return to faces once I’d learnt to draw bodies. However a week later I decided to draw a still life of some leaves and logs. Although it’s far from perfect, I found the shading so much easier to do. I also did it all with just a 2B pencil.

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So I guess the time spent attempting to draw a decent nose wasn’t wasted after all. And who knows? I might yet become portrait artist anyway 😉

Until next time,

Bekki x

Learning to Draw – My Go To Project

On November 19, 2019November 18, 2019 By Dartmoor YarnsIn Drawing, Sketching6 Comments

As I’m sure you know, I like to draw in natural light, but with the shorting days of winter I’ve been struggling more and more to do so. The other morning I woke up half hour early – while it was still dark – and wanted to get half an hour’s sketching in before I had to get on with the day. I’ve been thinking for a while that I ought to try the standard art class exercise of drawing the corner of a room.

Thinking this was something that the quality of light wouldn’t mater so much for, I decided to make a start on drawing one of the corners of our kitchen dinner.

20191118_12212100 — Obviously this photo wasn’t taken that first morning. And, no, I’m not going to draw all that junk on the table.

I quickly realised this sketch was going to take quite some time, but that was fine, because the walls, windows, curtains and table weren’t going to get moved in between. It was something I could pick up when I had some time to draw, but it didn’t matter what the light was like until I wanted to work on the shading.

This is how far I’ve got having spent a couple more half hours on it…

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So nice to have a go to project I’m happy about drawing in dimmer light and don’t feel any pressure to finish in any particular time frame.

Until next time,

Bekki x

Learning to Draw #5

On November 13, 2019November 11, 2019 By Dartmoor YarnsIn Drawing, Sketching, Uncategorized18 Comments

We’ve had such miserable weather over the last week even the daylight hours haven’t offered much in the way of decent light to draw in. And even when it has been reasonably bright, it’s rarely been when I’ve time to draw.

On the positive I’ve found time to draw every day – although I haven’t managed an hour’s worth every day, which is my goal. Here’s what I’ve drawn…

Quite pleased with this one – especially as I was battling fading light at the end – apart from the thickness of the veins on the bottom leaf…

Anyone remember Ugly Mugs? BTW the light was coming from the other direction to the photo when I drew it.

Again the light is different in the sketch to the photo – still, allowing for that I’m not too pleased about this one…

Big mistake with this one. I should have concentrated on the bridge, but got distracted by the details in the background and ended up hurrying the bridge as I was running out of time. The massive shadow on the left – which I ignored – also made this hard to see sufficient detail. I’ll draw this again I’m more proficient and when I’ve taken a better photo…

5-10 minute sketches…

And finally, the pine cone hubby brought home for me…

This was hard! And looks more like a pineapple. Another one I’ll be returning to when I’m more proficient.

Until next time,

Bekki x

Learning to Draw – Perspective

On November 5, 2019November 4, 2019 By Dartmoor YarnsIn Drawing, Uncategorized4 Comments

Saturday before last I had a good chunk of time to myself. I was getting a bit bored working on shading, so decided to learn about perspective.

I started by watching a few YouTube videos and reading a few tutorials about one point perspective. I then worked on the exercises from this tutorial.

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I then looked through some of my photos and chose some suitable for drawing in one point perspective. I started with this tunnel…

It seemed like a nice simple drawing and the construction meant I didn’t even need to rub out my construction lines apart from at the entrance…

I didn’t shade fully as it seem a waste of time and graphite.

Next day I attempted a sketch of one of the streets I took a picture of when we visited the Netherlands…

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I simplified it a little by removing the bikes

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At the end of the week I had a go at working on two point point perspective. I chose this picture…

Having drawn a fair amount of detail I realised I’d drawn one line going back to the wrong vanishing point and ended up rubbing most of my sketch out. I then realised that although the door looks as if it comes out of the wall at the bottom left of the door, the pub sign runs flat along the wall above it! Knowing this was impossible, I put the sketch on hold until I pass the pub again and can see what the heck’s going on…

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