Here are some recent examples of what I made with this app.

I hope you can guess what they represent. Click on a thumbnail to see the large version.

You see, I tried Brenda Hoddinott’s Drawspace service of drawing lessons and classrooms and found out that, apparently, I know nothing about drawing. Yes, I can draw, but do I really know anything, in the sense that I could teach my craft to others? I guess not.

It’s a sobering thought to realize you know so little of what you thought you were getting somewhat descent at. I mean, I know I’m not a professional artist, earning my keep with my craft, but I thought I would know at least some of the principles of drawing and be able to convey those principles to others.

So back to basics it is. “Drawing for Dummies”, by Brenda Hoddinott, and “The Joy of Drawing” by Bill Martin. I’m such a dummy for not enjoying myself while drawing.

Sigh.

And oh, what are those basics? Well, I can’t really tell, but one of those basics is that everything in drawing goes in rigid step-by-step instructions. None of that intuitive approach I was attempting to adopt to drawing. Drawing is discipline, daily cold showers and doing the right amount of steps to accomplish anything.

Just read the books and visit the site I mentioned and it will become clear to you. Drawing is like being in school or in the army. Strict rules, never deviating, always being accountable for your thoughts and actions.

I hate it with a passion doing it that way. No wonder I was in a corner. I’m a bad, bad artist.

I used photos from the Internet, purely for study. I display them on my iPad and try to sketch the face with pencil on paper next to the iPad.

I’m also reading my anatomy books, which I also haven’t done in a long time. They start to make sense now, which they didn’t do before. They just frustrated me, because I couldn’t draw what the book suggested I should try to draw. I lacked the basic drawing skill. Getting the proportions right is still hard. I have to spend at least 30 minutes of measuring and marking off on my paper. Transferring the angles from the photo onto paper still eludes me. As I wrote, it just takes a long time. There’s nothing intuitive about it.

Here are some samples of my drawings.

As you might have noticed, the quality gradually gets better with each drawing. It is practice on the one side (each drawing takes several hours to do), and better knowledge on the other side. Having a good grasp of anatomy really helps to identify seemingly trivial features, which actually are tiny indicators of the structure underneath (bones, muscles and tendons). But, I suppose, taking the subject serious, putting in the hours is the most important here. Books don’t make you a better artist, but concentrated practice with the intent to do your best does.

Still, these drawings are somewhat naive, because they are basically copies from photos and not artist’s interpretations (well they are, but only to a small extent). My hope is that I can start drawing from life, so I’m forced to interpret what I’m seeing and render that interpretation as accurately and quickly as possible. Models don’t keep the same pose for very long, after all, even if you would pay them to pose.

Thanks for reading.

Mind you, these are rules of thumb and you should always measure on the model and see if she or he conforms or deviates (and if so, in what manner). It’s a good starting point for a rough first sketch. If you’re experienced enough, you can do this step in your head and draw the right proportions straight in your initial rough sketch. A beginner might prefer to do both steps on paper until they are confident enough. It’s a crutch and once you can see the proportions of the model without these rules, you should base your drawing on that instead.

Note, that I’m not a teacher, nor do I play one on tv. It’s just some handy tricks I picked up here and there and which seem to work. If they don’t work for you, then don’t use them, or modify them as needed.

1. There is a vertical line that separates the left and right halves of the face. If you look closely, both sides aren’t exactly the same, but close enough for an initial sketch. The model is looking straight at us, so both halves are equally distorted by perspective view. They are more or less mirror images of each other.
2. The face is roughly as wide as the width of 5 eyes next to each other. The eyes are separated by the width of an eye. The eye of an adult is approximately twice as wide as high.
3. The vertical distance of the forehead, the nose and the part between the base of the nose and the tip of the chin are more or less the same. In women and men with weak chins you will notice that the part underneath the nose is not as high as the other vertical distances.
4. If you draw a line piece between the outer corners of the eyes, then this line piece will be the base of an upside down triangle with equal sides (equilateral triangle). The third point of this triangle coincides with the lowest point of the lower lip if the mouth is closed and relaxed.
5. Similarly, if you connect the pupils (looking forward) with a line piece, it is the base of an upside down equilateral triangle, with its top at the base of the nose (between the nose holes).
6. Two vertical lines drawn through the inside corners of the eyes touch the outer edges of the wings of the nose, left and right.
7. Two vertical lines drawn through the outer edges of the pupils looking straight ahead touch the corners of the relaxed mouth. However, often the mouth corners are closer together than the distance between the two vertical lines, making the mouth seem smaller than you’d expect. Wider mouths are rare, though.
8. In women the point of the nose is often turned up, while in men it’s often turned down. However, this woman has a nose that’s in between up and down.
9. The top of the forehead is about where the hair line lies in non-balding people with a short hairdo (no bangs).

I’m sure there are many more regularities in the human face, but these 9 rules of thumb should help you get on your way. Remember that if you draw from observation, you need to look mostly at your model and only occasionally at your drawing. Ideally you shouldn’t look at your drawing at all, but the temptation is just too great to not look.

So look, but don’t keep looking. Looking at people is much more interesting than looking at an unfinished sketch anyway.

Thanks for reading and have fun drawing.

The video is sped up 5 times and it took me originally 22 minutes to create it. Here is the JPG image.

I started with a photo on Flickr of a grown-up dog as my reference, made two consecutive versions of him that were more like cartoons, when I realized I was making this too hard. So I simplified the dog. This was better, but how did it compare to other animals and humans?

I was at a loss and decided to study how to draw animals a bit more with Ken Hultgren’s book The Art of Animal Drawing. I also tried some sketching of my own. Sloppy drawing, to say the least.

You can’t expect years of rigorous training to be replaced by a few hours of sketching, but a simple cartoon drawing should be feasible in that short amount of time. Now it was a matter of clearing the mind and pretend I’m the best Corgi draftsman on the planet, woof!

Well, before I was able to claim that title, I had to study the Corgi Flickr group photo stream for some good reference shots of the Welsh Corgi.

Here are two sketches I made from those photos, plus two sketches I made from imagination. Notice that there’s still a marked difference between the two. This meant I had to do more study and practice!

Then the time crunch set in. I have other things to do, other things to enjoy. So I sat down and drew the best puppy I could from a reference photo. The pose was almost like in the reference, but the look was aged down. It was supposed to be a puppy, after all.

It was an ink and crayon sketch, and although I would have like an original pose, it just wasn’t possible on such short notice.

The “official” sketch was posted on my tumblr site.

I hope you like it as much as I do.

Thanks for reading!

Week 1 has the following assignment:

Draw one full body character attitude pose for each of the expressions described below. Use the same character for each expression. The character is a heavy-set, but tall male.

1. Tired
2. Happy
3. Angry

The characters’ poses should clearly convey the expression without having to look at the face of the character.

Here’s my attempt.

The version on WordPress.com will stay there and I will start updating it, but not as frequently as I used to. On the other hand, this will be my diary, so to speak, in which I share some of my thoughts and ideas with the world.

I’ve deleted all posts of before 2012 on this blog, which were just copies from the WordPress.com blog. It was used as a placeholder, so I could have a site named after myself.

Then there are the obligatory resolutions for the New Year. I don’t believe in resolutions, since most of the times you can’t keep them. They seem empty promises. Even so, it’s nice to do a reality check during the year and see what has become of your nice plans for 2012.

Personal fitness

I’m a runner. I even joined a local track & field club’s runners’ group. My goals for this year are pretty steep.

• Lose weight and weigh less than 70 kg before my birthday in March (10 kg weight loss).
• Train to run 10 km in less than 40 minutes before the second half of the year (now around 46-48 minutes).
• Keep track of my progress on my Dutch language running blog, Stok Achter de Deur, with at least one blog post per week.

I already have built up a pretty strict exercise regime of 60 – 70 km per week and will build up to 100+ km in February. Furthermore, I will be losing roughly 1 kg per week, by doing a single fasting day each week, probably on Wednesday. That doesn’t mean I don’t eat, just that I eat less than I need to sustain my body.

The speed training part I’m not sure about yet. I deal with it as soon as the prerequisite of body weight has been reached.

Artistic endeavors

This is not the same as creativity. Art is basically an appreciation of beauty. You can make it yourself, but you don’t have to. Since I’m interested in storytelling, and more specifically comics, I need to raise my level of appreciation for that part of esthetics.

• Read more books, novels, comics, etc.
• Visit the library at least once a week, to keep in touch with my local community.
• Follow and comment on writing related blogs and Web sites.

Creativity

Making stuff is different than writing about making stuff (although writing results in “stuff” too). So things to do with creativity will be mainly hands-on activities.

• Supply a sketch a day to the Sketch Daily Facebook page I’m subscribed to.
• Work through Preston Blair’s Cartoon Animation book.
• Restart my comic about runners before the end of the year.
• Draw at least once a week people from life.
• Learn how to use WordPress to improve this Web site and let it be more than just this blog.
• Keep track of my progress with at least one blog post each week of the year.

I suppose that’s about it. I’m curious if I’m able to reach my goals.

Thanks for reading.