Month Two Complete!

Unbelievably, two months have now passed and I'm still drawing every day!  By unbelievable, I mean, "holy crap, where did the time go?"  It seems like just yesterday I picked up a pen and started sketching dolphins and bananas.  This is where doing this every day sure has helped.  If I only tried to draw when I had free time, or when I felt like it, I'd likely have half the production and even less improvement.  A little bit every day really adds up.  How much?  Let's take a look:

This practically speaks for itself.  First picture: horrible proportions, wonky shading and, really, just plain ugly.  Second picture: near flawless proportions, nice shading and I'd wager the image is darn pretty.  The difference is night and day.  After one month, improvements weren't easy to find.  Amazing how two months, just 30 more days, makes it so much easier.

That said, I feel my best work in month one is better than my best in month two (perhaps beginner's luck?).  The real difference is that my worst images in this second month are much better than the corresponding worst ones from April.  Let's celebrate with another look at my favourites from the last four weeks.

My confidence is starting to grow.  I'm starting to feel that this isn't a hopeless enterprise.  I've already exceeded my initial expectations, and now I'm setting my sights higher.  I've drawn less than 45min only twice in the past ten days, and both were work related time shortages.  I literally feel ecstatic as I look at my results.  If two months can do this, what will another two do?  We'll find out soon enough.

Week Eight: Happy Hands and Cats

It's Friday, but I have a busy weekend, and so I decided to upload my sketches tonight. And with good reason. This has been an incredible five days. I almost couldn't do wrong. Let's take a look:

Here are the leftover hands from last week. Amazingly, all of these were done on the same day, which so happened to be the very next day after I drew my first set of hands. It's amazing because the quality is much superior.  Virtually all of these look like hands, and most look darn good.  Again, all shading is completely mine.  Awesome.  I thought hands would be harder -- then again, maybe they are when you don't have a book showing you how.  We'll see, I guess.

The two cats came from two different online tutorials, found here and here.  The second one, in my mind, is much superior, as it feels more like a cat.  Not that the first image is bad.  I decided to shade neither, because the one tutorial was just the line outline, and the other I thought was so nice I didn't want to spoil it.

The final image is my first ever created image.  That is, no stock, no reference, pure imagination.  It's a cape and tunic combo.  I told you, I really like drawing these things.  It's not bad.  It could probably look a lot better, but again, pure imagination.  The last time I drew something purely from imagination I was likely 8-years-old.  I'm pushing more and more of those artistic boundaries.

Holy crap, awesome image alert.  Drawn from an online tutorial found here.  Undoubtedly, this is my best cat yet.  It has whiskers, the eyes are well-shaded, it has more little touches of fur, the pattern on the head is nice, and the fur looks the most realistic yet.  My only regret is that I rushed a little, mostly because I was so excited at how it was turning out.  When that's your only regret, you know things are going well.

My final image is again from an online tutorial.  This is apparently tribal art.  Because I'm an artistic noobie, I've never heard of it before.  I think I like it.  This cat-like image possesses a level of dynamism thanks to the fun shapes.  Other tribal artworks seem to share this characteristic.  I didn't do this perfect, but it still looks decent.  I'll have to explore this field more in the future.


There we have it: five days of very productive art.  I'm tempted to just induct each image into the Hall of Fame.  On the flipside, this week has now set the bar very high, and I'll have to work even harder to match this output.  So be it.  Month two is almost over, and weeks like this make me think this whole challenge might just have a happy ending sooner rather than later.  See you next week!

My Other Ultimate Goal

I said earlier that my ultimate goal is to draw incredibly life-like images.  This is still true.  I adore graphite realism, and if I ever get some good quality pencil crayons then I'll adore whatever you call coloured realism too.  I can think of no greater goal for an artist to strive towards.

'But then why have you spent this last month drawing comic-book characters and cartoons?'

An excellent question, dear reader.  If I have to be perfectly honest, photographic realism isn't my only goal.  I'm not ashamed to say I love cartoons.  Love, not loved.  I can still relax to this day watching Thundercats, Silverhawks, Transformers or the classic Batman: Animated Series, not to mention classic Disney movies.  I'd love to draw in that cartoon style.  More specifically, I'd love to create a whole cartoon universe.

Art is a creative endeavour.  Drawing hyper-realistically isn't really creative.  Not really.  Drawing very realistically, generally from reference, takes incredible skill, patience and problem solving abilities, but not much creativity.  If you start stylizing your image, then it's not realism anymore, is it?  Realism is my ultimate goal because if I can draw something people at first think is a photograph, I can likely draw anything.

And at that point, I'd want to create my own world.  This would be a cartoon, or maybe a graphic novel.  Whatever you want to call it.  I'd want to create my own settings from imaginations, fill them with my own characters and fuel them with action and energy.  I've written dozens of stories, and so many times I pause and wonder, 'How can I write this particular scene?'  Now I'll be able to draw it instead.  At least, that's the goal.

I have no vain illusions of creating the next great graphic novel.  I just want to create my own characters and visual record what I see inside my head.  To do that, I need to learn how to draw comics and cartoons.  But before I can do that, I need to learn draw.  Period.

So that's my goal: to draw cartoons.  Likely very realistic cartoons, but cartoons nonetheless.  From this point forward, you now know what to expect from my pencil.  And really, who doesn't like cartoons?

Week Seven: Manga??

I'll be honest: I'm not a huge fan of manga-style art.  To be more specific, I really dislike manga-faces.  They seem distorted and uninteresting; take away colour and I find every face looks identical.  However, my local library has a huge selection of How To Draw Manga books, and I grabbed a few.  They had detailed instructions on drawing full-body characters, including a special section on hands, and so I grabbed them.  For one week at least, I'll be a manga artist.  Let's take a look:

First, let's laugh at the first two images.  I call the first one 'the gargantaur,' because this 'teenager' somehow ended up with the largest shoulders in the history of the world.  Seriously, I followed the instructions exactly, but I created an ogre.  It almost looks like I stopped trying on this one, and that's probably not far from the truth.  The middle image is much better, but it's such a ridiculous pose I can't take it seriously.  Who stands like this, honestly?

The final try isn't bad at all.  If we ignore the hands, this is probably my most well-proportioned and defined upper-body yet.  The flip-side is that the legs are among the worst I've done yet, but that's okay.  You'll notice that none of these three have any sort of shading: I was more focused on getting the outline than a finished project, especially for these three uninteresting poses.

Here are three much more interesting poses, and I spent probably twice as much time on any one of these than all three combined.  Collectively, the hands, faces and feet are all quite good (for me at least).  I begrudingly followed the manga-head advice with noses, but I refused to make the pointy, pentagon-style heads.  The middle character was shaded very roughly, similar to my wolf from last week, but I'm again surprised at the results (in a good way).  The 'karate girl' as the books calls it (though it's clearly kung fu) was supposed to teach my foreshortning, but I didn't make the front foot big enough.  Still quite happy with the result, though.

The big success, though, was the 'running girl.'  I love drawing capes, and I think this one turned out splendid.  I spent a long time on both the cape as well as the skirt, and both achieve that wavy, clothing look.  I'm most impressed with the hair, though.  This is easily my best attempt at hair yet; just compare it to the other two.  I really like hair, and I'm hoping I start to like drawing hair as much as I like drawing trenchcoats and capes.

Here are my hands.  Please note that the book only included the outline, not the shading or interior definition, which was somewhat disappointing.  My bottom hand (supposed to be a clenched first angled slightly up) suffers from bad shading, shading that turns it from hand to blob.  The middle fist is better.  The first hand isn't bad for a first attempt, and the final image is quite a valiant attempt at a difficult pose.


I have about six or seven different hands I want to still draw, but my manga session is now over.  I will never be known as an anime-artist.  That said, I found the manga-style steps to creating bodies involved less erasing than with the X-Men, mostly because of smarter guideline placement, and I like that.  As the three girl poses showed, I became much better with my proportions as the week went on.  When I eventually create an original character (with a cape and/or trenchcoat and long hair!), I'll probably follow the manga-build and use a realistic-style head.  I'm not near that now, though.  See you next week!

Week Six: Lions and Tigers and X-Men, Oh My

This week started off well but then seemed to fade.  This may be due to my work schedule, which consisted of nothing early in the week followed by three completely full days where I had to draw while asleep to fill my quota.  Note to self: change work schedule.  Anyway, onto the real show:

Clearly I'm still working from art books.  I've now finished on X-Men, mostly because I've drawn all my old favourite characters.  This week we have Gambit and Magneto.  Mag (the one on the right) was interesting because I experimented with the 'colour' scheme.  Traditionally he is red and purple, but those are hard to differentiate with only pencil (and it would require a lot more work).  Instead, I kept him mostly white and shaded everything else.  Again, it's interesting.  His left arm is hilariously small, but I don't care about arms; I mostly liked his cape.  That was fun.

Gambit on the left will likely find his way into a Hall of Fame shortly.  I really nailed this one.  The proportions are the closest I've ever drawn; his head looks fairly head-like; his hands aren't too terribly mangled.  But really, it's all about the trench-coat.  I could look at that thing all day.  Wonderful shading.  Whenever I get around to creating an original character, he should wear a trench-coat.  Or a cape.  Or both!  Epic clothing is epic.

With X-Men done, I went back to drawing animals, this time from a new book, one with more interesting poses. First we have a wolf, which I really love. With the exception of the initial body and head guidelines, I didn't erase anything.  It's not perfect, but it has a certain vitality that I've rarely seen pop from my pencil before.  I also experimented with the shading, using a new style, and it really worked.  It also only took about 20min, which absolutely amazed me.

I tried the same thing with my two cats, but I couldn't recapture the magic.  The lion looks completely flat, and worse, it appears to be malnurished.  Where's the strength?  I can't decide if the mane is decent or a tangled mess.  Don't get me started on the head.  Positive: the tail tuft, and the fact that any future lion has to be better almost by definition.

The tiger is slightly better.  Again, it doesn't have that majestic strength a big cat must have, but it's less flat, so that's an improvement.  The very front and very rear legs make me sad.  The head is okay, but something irks me about it.  And the stripes!  Why does my favourite animal have such a hard thing to draw??  I did better here than my first tiger a few weeks back, but I still nearly pulled my hair out.  Also, look at the grass, my very first attempt at a background.  Doesn't it add so much? =)

It's slightly sad: I wanted to devote today, Saturday, to drawing, but my efforts were largely wanting.  I guess I'll put the pencil down and come back at it tomorrow.  It's funny: two months ago I'd likely be thrilled at any of these drawings.  Anyway, I'll likely finish up with my library books (no choice: they're due next week), and then I'll go back to still-life.  Another week in the books!

Sketching and Drawing

Drawing and sketching.  Apparently, these aren't the same things.  I've always used the two terms interchangeably, but then I've never had much reason to use these terms in the past.  A quick sketch and a quick drawing, to me, are the same thing; a final sketch and a final drawing should look the same.  'Sketch' perhaps has a slightly rougher connotation, almost akin to a rough draft.  However, and perhaps this is the writer in my talking, 90% of my first drafts are still there in the final drafts.  It's rare when you have to completely gut an essay.  I equally assumed it's rare to completely gut a drawing.

As it turns out, sketches are, well, more akin to jot notes, a visual set of shorthand from which you can later craft a full work.  To continue the essay analogy, sketching is the research and the plan, drawing is actually putting it all together.  Or so I now think.

I don't sketch.  I may have said I sketched in the past, but that's not sketch as it is used here.  I've always drawn.  I suppose this is a carry-over from my writing personality: I don't do rough-drafts.  Well, I do and I don't.  I approach everything, every word, with the intention of making it the best possible.  Calling something a rough-draft is an excuse to make mistakes, to not try your hardest.  No.  I labour over every word.  I make good copies.  Then I inevitably go back and make better copies, and finally a best copy.

Such is my view of art.  To call something just a sketch is to say, "I know it sucks and has errors everywhere, but it's just a rough sketch and that's okay."  I'm not doing this challenge to make rough sketches, to make errors and just shrug them off: I want to get good.  There's no room for rough drafts.

Unfortunately, I now realize this is a mistake.  I've been writing for many, many years, and I've made numerous mistakes.  Thousands of mistakes.  Ten-thousand, and I've learned from them all.  I now have the luxury of using this knowledge to avoid these mistakes.  I have no such knowledge with art.  I don't know which mistakes to avoid because I haven't made enough mistakes yet.

I guess I need to give myself permission to make a bad drawing.  It's okay as long as I learn from it.

So I'll be changing my drawing challenge slightly.  I still intend to draw at least 20min everyday, and I mean draw: work on something I (hopefully) would like to hang on the fridge, something I'd be proud to call my own work.  But I also need to sketch.  Every day, I'll try to set a few minutes aside to sketch.  Well, most days.  Some days.  At least once a week.

I suppose this blog won't really change: I'll still upload my drawings every week.  I have no intention of cluttering these pages with rough sketches.  I'm a novice artist as is; do we really want to see my rough work?  If a sketch inspires something that I draw later, sure, I'll upload that, but this is more of a me-change than a blog-change.

It's okay to make mistakes.  It really is.  If I tell myself this enough times, maybe I'll believe it, and maybe I can benefit as well.

Week Five: Superheroes, Go!

Good news!  I got a part-time job.  This is, in general, always better than the alternative.  The only drawback is less drawing time.  On three days this week I had to struggle hard to manage just 20min of sketching.  The other four days, though, were fairly productive.  Let's take a look:

Wow, X-Men! I went to the library and grabbed a few 'How-to-draw' books. I grabbed X-Men because they were a childhood icon and I need to draw full bodies at some point. It worked fairly well, I think. You'll notice that all of the drawings are outlined in black-pen. This is because of the huge amount of guidelines that needed to be erased, and it's easier to use pen and erase everything else than to manipulate an eraser around the lines I want to keep.

Wolverine looks good. His arms in the right-image aren't in proportion, but oh well. He looks much better in the second image, his head the only unfortunate part. There are LOTS of details here. Each drawing took 2+ hours, spread out across multiple sittings.

The final image is my first abandoned project. I spent three days trying to turn this into something good, and I just never liked it from the beginning. Rather than forcing myself to complete something I already dislike, I gave up. It felt good.

We've already met Joey before.  We also have Storm, again from X-Men.  You'll notice that the darks on her are very dark compared to my normal.  This is because I invested in some soft pencils.  That's about $15 now invested in this year-long challenge.  You'll also notice, if you look carefully, some pen slips.  I was very tired when I tried to outline Storm with my pen, and I accidentally inked a few spots that shouldn't have been.  Oh well.

At the bottom we have three separate anatomy studies.  The scan here doesn't show up that great.  Apparently studying anatomy is really important for artists.  I did this and didn't get too much out of it.  Then I drew a giant, bulging bicep.  Why?  Because if I ever draw my own portrait, I need to know how to make giant muscles.  Haha!  Joking.  Maybe.


Some decent work this week.  I find I'm erasing a lot less, which must be a sign of improvement.  It took five weeks, but I feel more confident when I sit down, pencil in hand.  I had more fun with superheroes than faces or animals, so I'll probably try them for another week and see what happens.  See you in seven days.