Forum posts by Thestripper

Hi. Thank you for commenting. I do agree with what you are saying. Line quality is of great importance. In this session I was drawing in a quite small 5"x8" sketchbook and using a thin mechanical pencil so line quality is hard to obtain that way. I'll go up in size, probably draw on A3 newsprint and use a good soft wooden pencil for my next post, see what that does. Thanks again.

• Thestripper edited this post on January 30, 2021 1:22pm.

After looking at my own post I can see one distinct thing that I haven't noticed until now. Let's see if someone else catches on the same thing.

Yes.. I've seen this before and had this happen to me as well...

The good news is that it's not a mystery and once you realize and accept what's going on you can get back on track again. You say that you have been drawing a lot, "hours a day for weeks..." and that you have been "hitting it hard...".

When you work hard the body, mind and nervous system gets subjected to what is called stress. Stress is the load we need to push to get anything done and improve. A balanced amount will make us better/stronger and too much will make us digress in cognitive and physical functioning. Drawing requires both of these aspects.If your brain is tired and worn you can see that in the quality of your drawings. My advice would be to keep pushing but stop "pushing hard". Eat and sleep well. When you hit the sweet spot of the right ammount of practice you will start to enjoy it more and also develope skill at a much faster rate. Good luck!

Yes! I love your lines. To me it looks like you need to do what you already have been doing - 30 seconds gesture drawings. It looks like you have got the line and arm movement in order already so you just need to do some mileage now. Maybe add in some line practices as well, going from thin to thick, soft to hard, shape repetitions and such. Good luck!

• Thestripper edited this post on January 29, 2021 11:02pm.

I like your progress but I would strongly recommend that you upgrade your pencil to something better suited. Conté are great but if you can't get them then try to get a 6B or even 8B lead pencil. I think Tim Gula has some videos on how to sharpen and use them. He is also a master of gesture. Check him out at you tube. Good luck!

Looks like you have a good understanding of planes and how to orient them in 3D space. If I were you I would do a set of 30 or 60 second gesture drawings each day. Do as many as you can without getting stressed.

Get out of your comfort zone to improve. Try new media, pencils, conté. Do you do gesture drawing? If not then get on it.

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These kinds of exercises are a great help. But I would strongly suggest to use a soft led pencil or conté instead of the dreaded marker he uses.

• Thestripper edited this post on January 29, 2021 9:21pm.

Hi.

I would advice you to get a soft lead pencil like 6B or 8B. If you practice with such a pencil you will be able to draw almost invisible light strokes, but also very dark and powerful lines when applying more preassure. Good luck!

• Thestripper edited this post on January 29, 2021 10:37pm.

Wow, these are good! I have given this advice to others before and I will do it again now because it is one of the most valuable things you can do as a drawing artist. Use lead pencil and do every day line practices to learn to make big and precise lines from your shoulder and elbow. You will also learn pen preassure so that you can scetch and explore the shape with almost invisible strokes until you find the form and then use a bold and beautiful line to express it.

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• Thestripper edited this post on January 29, 2021 9:23pm.

Hi.

I liked your drawings. The 2 minute ones got a little stiff compared to the 60 sec. I liked especially the three standing 60 sec poses on the lower half of the paper. If I was to give you a tip it would be to do a whole page of line training. Like doing circles, getting them perfectly round, going both ways, big and small, do sweeping lines, straight lines and go over them again and again to train your arm to move. Do this every day! You will get faster and your line with get better and more beautiful in a short time.

Hi! Gesture drawing should not be a stress factor, it should be submersive, almost meditative. That's why it's good to do it on cheap paper and not care to much. If you feel stress it's probably because you are trying to capture the whole pose in that little time. Try and drop all details and only capture which way the head is turned and then just two or three big sweeping lines that represents the main flow or motoin of the pose - the gesture, nothing more. Also, it looks like you are drawing on a drawing pad. Try whatever paper (newsprint/cheap kind is best for gesture drawing) and a soft (6B or 8B) lead pencil, that is how you get good at line weight and learn how to make sketch lines, statement lines and shading.

• Thestripper edited this post on January 29, 2021 9:10pm.
• Thestripper edited this post on February 4, 2021 10:25am.

Hi.

I've started doing some gesture drawing and would like to hear your thoughts on my progress thus far and if you see any specific weakness that I could strengthen. These are all 30 or 60 second drawings with poses either from Line of Action or just some random poses from Instagram. I should note that these are all very small drawings, about 2 inches tall/wide.

Thank you!