Friday, August 29, 2008

drawin' tips

UPDATE:
Having trouble with eyes? Another important idea to employ is "eye-construction"! Draw a horizontal and a vertical line which curve appropriately to the contour of the eye with, in most cases, the pupil centered where the lines intersect.

Hey guys! Just some advice that has really helped me, if you haven’t already thought of it;

John K. has said a number of times that a good way to see if what you’re trying to learn is sinking in is to draw it from memory. He has specifically mentioned it while talking about caricatures and toy-construction, but I believe it applies to everything.

Also, he has mentioned, for those learning how to draw a character or something, to go ahead and trace it 2 or 3 times to get a feel for the shapes.

Just thought I’d share. Any more tips you always keep in mind? I love to talk draw!

drawings by John K.

3 comments:

David Omar said...

Good tips. Patrick! I draw from memory from time to time, did it with the Preston head and it's still not great. It's a good way to figure out if you still need to practice it.

Tracing is something I thought about, I'm thinking now that it could save me many hours of doodles if my hand can get the shapes from tracing right away.

Can't think of any other tips at this moment. I do use proportion rules more often these days. It helps to figure out how many heads a character is, so you can pose it differently but still keep it's look consistent.

-David O.

Clinton said...

I just wanted to add that Stephen Silver also advocates Memory Sketching in your learning process. I personally don't recommend tracing because then you are only copying. Drawing from scratch is the best way to go. And if you have to draw a 100 eggheads until you get it right, then so be it.

PJS said...

yeah David, these exercises have gotten me thinking a lot more about proportions.

True, Clinton. Sometimes I will freehand it first a bunch of times, rather than tracing. Either way, I like to get a good feel for the shapes before I start trying to duplicate a drawerin'