This is going to be a quick update, mostly just showing some newer life drawings because I don’t want to mess with my scanner right now. I’ve been spending a lot of time studying and practicing (excluding the week I got sick) and I think I’ve been able to see a good deal of improvement.

I had a pretty good realization when I got frustrated with my drawings. I realized that I tend to see a good deal of improvement, then I start taking on other challenges and slowly start to lose sight of what I know I should be doing every time I go life drawing. Of course, this leads to sloppy, sad drawings that don’t make me happy and don’t encourage me to keep drawing. The problem is, once I start to see so much improvement, I stop reminding myself to compare everything, I stop whispering muscle and bone names under my breath, I go back to just trying to be fast and slop something out quickly. Of course, if I slow it down, study the forms, look more than draw and remind myself to “compare everything” as Henry Yan said, then I get a much more accurate drawing even quicker. Partially because I don’t have to waste so much time wondering why something looks off.

Someday, I think these things will be more instinctive and I won’t need to constantly remind myself of them, but until then, I need to stop trying to jump the gun and just slow it down a bit.

These are in reverse chronological order… for no reason at all. Starting at the top here are some drawings from earlier today when I decided that this girl’s hairdo is maybe my favorite hairstyle to draw ever. I’m also doing something new this time… including some 2 minute and five minute drawings! I usually hate those but I’m getting faster so, check em out.

I’m still trying to get more accurate with my proportion and anatomy, but I’m also doing more work trying to be more accurate with faces and values. Frankly, I need to balance my values like no one’s business.

*PS., Happy Birthday Tom!

Dear Everyone, Hello!
It’s been a fantastic month. I actually failed on my goal… oops. But it’s not that bad. I lasted 20 straight days drawing studies for three hours a night (in addition to drawing at work all day, drawing at life drawing workshops and practicing digital painting). I started doing more digital painting practice and lost some of my momentum. So, I’ve started over only with a little less time demand. I still end up drawing longer but I’ve cut the requirement down to at least one hour of studies per night.

I started the 30 days by cranking out a ton of gestures and faces because I felt like I needed to. I did those for awhile but I’ve moved on to serious anatomy studies. I have a feeling I’ll be doing these anatomy studies for a long while! There’s so much to learn and I can see a serious improvement in my speed and accuracy of drawing at the workshops. I’m also using these as a chance to work on my line control.

Every night I go home to this:

I’ve been using the three books on the right to get my anatomy practice. I’ve been drawing out of that Michael Hampton book a lot, but recently I’ve started modifying his drawings. I’ll draw some of the drawings he uses as an example for the muscles but add more anatomy to them. I like his muscle gesture and volume shapes so I’ve been trying to draw all of those as well. I use the other anatomy for artists book and Gray’s anatomy to supplement the information that’s missing from Michael Hampton’s book, or just to get a better idea of what Hampton is talking about.

I plan to go through those Loomis books somewhat the same way…

Some of the studies/practices were drawn from tv shows or photo reference. I’ll admit, I can’t remember where I got the reference from in most cases, so, if it’s your photo and you hate me for referencing it, I’m sorry. But kind of not sorry cause I gotta study! GET OFF MY CASE MAN! I JUST GOTS TA DRAWR!

And here’s some drawings:

These next images are getting into some of my nightly studies… just a few though because I promised myself these wouldn’t be viewed by anyone so I wouldn’t feel any pressure to draw better than I can. Some of the drawings are copies from Michael Hampton’s book, some are from photos and tv ref and some are made up.

Here’s a quick digitally painted self portrait I did getting excited about Halloween… I am no longer excited about Halloween… Ha ha.

The second I post this I’ll be drawing latissimus dorsi like crazy!

I’ve recently rededicated myself to improving in life drawing… serious improving, not just gradual improving. Actually, I’ve started to learn oil painting and digital painting but my real focus in studies is still figure drawing and life drawing. Hopefully, I won’t wear myself thin. At this point, I think I’ll just be taking the painting slowly, because I know all of these figure studies will help my painting eventually.

My new study routine is pretty simple but intense. I found an old sketchbook, one of those brown Strathmore 11 x 14 sketch paper books that I started doing crappy life drawings in a few years ago. I’ve started a 30 day stretch that I’ve planned to draw studies in this thing for three hours a night. I’m focused on getting better at an accurate construction drawing and I also just want to be better at faces. Portrait style and on my quick figures as well. For the past five days, I’ve drawn a few pages from the book Figure Drawing: Design and Invention, including gesture, structure and faces. I’ve also just drawn faces from various people and photos and pausing the show I’m watching on Netflix to draw someone. Actually, I’ve been pausing Netflix a lot to draw someone… I feel like I would be a horrible tv watching companion.

Since starting this 30 days/3 hours a day thing, I had a figure drawing workshop this morning and I could already feel an improvement in my structure and faces. I’m really excited to see how this goes.

Here’s an assortment of figure drawings and random things, a small sample of all the drawing I’ve been doing. The last couple are from today. You guys might not be able to see an improvement, because most of it was just how quickly I was able to work and how much more solid my quick drawings were.

_{Disclaimer: My scanner is coming up blurry, and my figure studies are too big to scan so I’m just taking photos of those with my phone… sorry about the lack of quality on the images.}

Some recent Figure Drawing in order, oldest to latest. All either 10 or 20 minute poses: