Forums » Art Critique
Critique will be highly appreciated!!
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I'm a rising Junior, and I just started drawing again(I have little previous experience), I'll be applying for Calarts (Character Animation) next year, and I wanted to see what you guys think and hopefully I can get some good advice from someone who has already been through this. It'll be nice if any of you could please critique the drawings I've uploaded:
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Some of the stuff I've drawn: (starts off with rough sketches, developes to better rendered drawings)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64126390@N06/sets/72157626981375394/
New Stuff that I just(7th of August) posted:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64126390@N06/sets/72157627376672912/
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Questions:
What's my biggest problem? Shading / Contour / Balance / Creativity / ???
Should I simply focus on Croquis since I'll be applying for Calarts or should I still continue drawing other things like objects and portraits as well?
Which direction should I be working towards(I guess it's a difficult question)?
This post was edited by Mark Kwak at August 7, 2011 7:41:31 AM PDT -
Hey Mark
So your biggest problem would be your line quality and you need to study anatomy. Once you know your anatomy you can work on volume, shading, and proportions. Don't worry about contours at all at this point. Focus on drawing through the figure and being able to communicate the weight and volume.
Your hand drawings look okay but I can see that you don't have the knowledge of anatomy and volume in the hand yet. Work on that and you'll improve in no time ^^
Don't just focus on one thing. When applying to Calarts, you should already know how to draw. This means how to draw life, landscapes, portraits ect. Draw animals, people, your living room and everything in between. Don't be afraid to experiment and exaggerate and push your works.
You're working on being the best you can and CalArts will help to push you even further but everything else is just you. Just draw draw draw. Best of Luck and I hope I helped ^^
This post was edited by Deleted Member at June 19, 2011 2:02:04 PM PDT -
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Nice work! I've got some resources I think might help you out. A lot actually...I really like books.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2433658/Andrew-Loomis-Figure-Drawing-For-All-its-Worth
this would be a good start for you, Loomis was one of the best art teachers ever and you can read his whole book online for free. It's really old, so that's legal.
http://www.marshallart.com/reviews/anatomyHuman/ Here's a whole list of books compiled by Marshall Vandruff, a really good anatomy teacher. I recently ordered a lot of books here so I can't personally attest to any of them but Bridgeman, though I;m sure they're all great.. Bridgeman's book's are a great source for anatomy, but they can be hard to understand if you don;t know the basics and it's easy to just fall into copying the illustrations in his book with your mind shut off so you really don't learn much. When you study Bridgeman's work you need to compare to book to life and make drawings that help you understand what the forms he's describing in the book are. Then it's a good idea to try to invent those forms from your imagination. Oh, and Bridgeman's books are available online too.
Now a couple of websites I use frequently :http://lovecastle.org/gestures/index.php and http://pixelovely.com/tools/gesture.html
These are sites that flash through human bodies in tons of poses, which is great practice for gesture drawing. Gesture drawing is basically trying to capture the essence of the pose, what the body is doing in the pose rather than what the shading or anatomy looks like. It's a cornerstone for those details, and this exercise is near the heart of animation. Walt Stanchfield, an instructor at Disney, made tons of handouts on gesture drawing which were published in his book set, "Drawn to Life" http://www.amazon.com/Drawn-Life-Classes-Stanchfield-Lectures/dp/0240810961
And another two, Glen Vilppu:http://www.amazon.com/Vilppu-Drawing-Manual-Glenn-V/dp/B002IZYQRS/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308528508&sr=1-1
and Michael Hampton: http://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-Invention-Michael-Hampton/dp/0615272819/ref=pd_sim_b_2
These guys both go through their own method of making a figure drawing. Vilppu's main point is that you have to construct the body out of simple masses; boxes, cylinders, and spheres. Hampton's book goes over gesture and the individual construction of the different parts of the body, so in my opinion he's like Bridgeman but easier to read.
So there's my big, expensive list of stuff that would be worth studying. Hope you find it useful! And for lines, you could try an exercise like the one in the first comment of this video http://www.ctrlpaint.com/home/2011/6/7/perspective.html#comments I've been doing that the past week or so to warm up, it's a pretty good exercise. Also try to control your lines when you're drawing. I think that's mostly just practice.
Try to experiment with your mediums some more. Draw with and on everything you can! From what I've read Calarts likes expressive, experimental work and if all you have is charcoal on newsprint that may be a few points off. Good luck! -
Well as you do more quick gestures and using more of your arm rather your wrist when you draw, then the lines will look more loose. So, in that sense, it will come over time.
How you move your pencil at different angles to achieve thinner or bolder lines is a conscious thing. But you should focus on having looser lines before you work on that. -
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OMG Thanks a lot! I'm going to be using every link you gave me from now on! Good that I asked for advices, I would have never found all these stuff otherwise! Again Thanks a lot!!!!! Hopefully when I start to study these and draw more I'll have more specific questions to ask you guys.
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I really like your work and i think you are on the right track. Everything was going great until i got to this one. http://www.flickr.com/photos/64126390@N06/5842081472/in/set-72157626981375394/ ! no circles with cross hairs for heads! No one has a circle for a head or cross hairs on there head (unless if you are drawing them through a sniper scope). So i don't want to see them. Your forms are great and poses are strong. don't include this piece:http://www.flickr.com/photos/64126390@N06/5841510459/in/set-72157626981375394/ Your gestures are solid, now you just need to work on building them up. You seem to loose your gesture when you build up your forms. Just remember to keep doing the stuff you were doing in the gesture, and build and sculpt the forms around it. you are plenty loose on your gestures, you just need to maintain that looseness in the longer poses. -
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I think your observation skills could use the most work and that you could probably benefit from doing some longer poses/landscapes/still lifes. If you don't know what sight measuring is, look it up. Underlying structure, and key proportions/relationships are things that I see needing the most work. For example, a line or shape may exist on the figure in your drawing to denote a body part or edge, but may function only as a symbol of that part, without being sensitive to this particular person, pose, and moment, and describing them. You use very few lines. I'm all for simplicity, boldness, and confidence in drawings, but I think your drawings suffer more than they gain by not having a solid foundation or flow. Don't be afraid to fell out the form with lighter lines, building up, instead of going straight for the contour. Clear structure is far more valuable than a clean contour and being able to really construct a figure will be more useful to you than making a few pretty lines. That being said, you do get some good motion and flow in some of your gestures like #s 15 and 18. You start to pick up on it in others, but those dark straight lines suck out a lot of the energy. It's good to begin from a line of the gesture like that, but start light and build up. You don't want that line to be your drawing, you want it to act as a guide. Also, using lines and curves is great to build a figure with, but don't forget about volumes like spheres and the like. Translating 3d space to 2d paper is very difficult, but you'll want to treat your drawings more as sculptures, carving in, building up, so to speak. Again- this leads back to structure. -
I did the research, and I understand what sight measuring is. I've used it only when something is very off and I don't know if it's right. I understand exactly what you mean about the gesture now. My gestures were never gestures they are just contours and my teacher would tell me to use more volume but I didn't understand what she meant but you just proved the point clearly. The very next time I have another figure drawing I will make sure that I try more lines and build up and I'll post them here. I see that my drawings have no volume. Thanks for the critique, my drawings are going to get a whole lot better. I'll keep that in mind.
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I had a few questions: 1. Does drawing from a photo count as drawing from life if the situation/proportion is realistic? 2. Does an abstract drawing done while looking at a real model count as drawing from life? 3. Does a drawing of solely someone's face that doesn't include his or her body count for Calarts?
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Your last two situations: Of course.
Your first: Technically, yes, but I would definitely not recommend it. There's a vast difference between sitting in front of a computer monitor or in a chair and drawing from a photograph and being in a big classroom with all your peers staring at a real live person. That is something you probably should not sending. But it's a nice practice, I guess. -
What about http://www.flickr.com/photos/64126390@N06/6017540289/in/set-72157627376672912 this was from a photo, should I keep doing drawings from photos as well or should I only draw from a real model? I mean it's always easier to fully complete the drawing when it's a photo since it could take hours.
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I looked at your Mockup Portfolio and I definitely see some improvement there.
Here are some comments I would make if I were looking at the portfolio as a whole:
-The figures need more depth. I can see you're trying to work longer on the figures and adding volume but you can still add more.
-More color. The pages look really empty. Nothing pops out to me.
-You have nice lines but you just need to keep drawing and brush up on anatomy. I don't think you have enough knowledge of it yet and I can see it.
-Were you drawing from photos in some of these? I think someone mentioned this but make sure not to do this in a real portfolio. You see and learn more from real life.
-Calarts loves hands and feet. Really work on those. I love how you're trying to get the whole figure in there.
-You have time before you apply. Slow down and really study up on EVERYTHING. As my figure drawing teacher said "True gesture drawing is drawing faster after years of meticulous practice." Don't try to rush to improve. Really put all your attention into each figure. If something looks wrong, ask yourself why and how you can fix it. Then try it again and again. Its going to take you longer to improve if you only copy the figure instead of really LOOKING and ANALYZING it. You're drawing what you see.
Hopefully I made sense :P
OH! Something else that might be helpful to you is contour drawing. When you draw from life in your skectchbook, try not to lift your pen/pencil the entire time.
http://looshu.tumblr.com/tagged/art
This girl does really fun contour drawings. It's a nice way to help you observe and gives nice expressionistic lines.
