Hi everyone!

I just finished sending out the PDF file - its rather large so if you don't get one then you should contact me and we will figure out how to get it to you. Please check your spam folders or bulk files before deleting them, your spam blocker may block it because of its size.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask - Venus and I will try our best to help.

Good Luck and I hope you enjoy the class. You can post your pics here on this thread.




Update, I woke up this morning still feeling bad but so much better than yesterday and the day before. I ate quite a bit today so that is an improvement. Hopefully tomorrow will be better - if not, then its off to the doctor. ugh! thanks to all of you for your concerns, I appreciate it more than you know.

I got my first PDF Lesson.. I am really excited about starting this but, alas, I am down with a migraine and can't see enough to read it all. I printed it out for my files and will start it as soon as the headache has let up.

You girls have done a wonderful job on this and it is really appreciated..

Kudo's to you both...

On the first assignment, is this to be a drawing without reference, or are we allowed a model (photo or otherwise)?

Blade - Any type of reference you like. It will be a comparison at the end of the class



Cyn - thanks so much - I hope you enjoy the class and manage to squeeze in some time to do it.

Thank you so much for this Joanie - you did a wonderful job!! But then I never doubted you would.

I've spent some time looking for some magazine pictures, scanning them and putting them together. Now the real fun starts. I'm off to re-read this first lesson and getting down to the nittygritty!

Thanks again and I do hope you woke up feeling much better this morning.

Oh, sad! I've just read about it and I sent a PM to Painter48.. These lessons are very interesting...
Hope I'm not too late to sign in.. (and hope the time zone won't influence at all )

Joanie, get well soon!

Wow Painter and Venus.....I just looked it over....I think it is extremely well put together....I feel a bit of stress now, I think it's a little over over my head.....lol ...but I will give it my best try...hope to start shortly...thanks , Brian.

Cyn hope your feeling better.

ditto....

I felt the same way initially it seems overwhelming but it isn't ...baby steps guys just take baby steps. I plodded through some of it last night . I had these huge expectations of myself to produce immediately and that's not what this is about.It's a very methodical approach and I found after an hour I was getting the hang of it.

Really you have to see the first drawing I made Which is the first step

I was trying to draw a man's figure but he still looks like he is wearing pants

Go in with an open mind and a clean slate and I know the results are going to be phenomenal

Thanks Shutterbug and Tim....for not making me feel so alone....I am really new to figure drawings.

Well I want to be a Cartoonist one day so I hope everyone gets a good laugh from this...lol...my first practice exercise....I think one looks like the Michelin Man.

I have not yet viewed the lesson .. but Brian I bet you have a good start

You have to get up before the chickens to keep up with Brian. lol

Are we supposed to post our drawings here or email them to the teachers?

Judyvan

Judy,
The firsr drawing lesson as in lesson one you send to Joanie or I for the end of the class. The other exercises and daily exercises you post here on the thread.

Ok, So since I am helping Joanie with this thread class and she is sick I will be the "second" to post my drawings for the first lesson. I really didn't measure properly and if I have enough time I may redo the exercises for this first lesson. I was trying to hurry and get it out of the way so that I could do the other two threads I am currently participating in ( I am hosting this weeks Draw Challenge for those interested!! LOL) as well as doing Brb's step by step portrait of Kim's lovely daughter Kayla. So feel free to leave comments and critique on my drawings. They will be appreciated.

You guys have done so well and Brian sure jumped in here. Smarty pants. Lookin good too, Brian..
Here are my first practice thingys.

My attempts ...I have more but I thought I would post these ones some of my other ones have rather large posteriors because of the no erase rule( that's my excuse and I am sticking to it) and really didn't want to have the whole Drawspace rolling on the floor with laughter





My cylinder robot people

Hello all, here's my humble attempts...one thing i noticed is, when not using a reference (at my skill level at least) it's interesting what your brain "think's" it knows about the drawing the human form. My eyes know it looks wrong but the brain/hand won't cooperate ....if that makes any sence

I tried doing some of the manakin perspective drawing...wooo that's tough. Also i noticed it's quite difficult for me to draw the form straight up and down....or should i say I feel like i'm trying hard not to turn them towards the left...towards a very slight perspective.

Anyways...gotta crawl before you can walk right? ...i want to run now though!

[attachmentid=4737][attachmentid=4738][attachmentid=4739][attachmentid=4740]

LOL Artfix, thats why I did some of my drawings in pen so that I wasn't tempted to erase, like it said in the lesson!! nice job though.

Amid all that is going on in my real life at the moment, I've found some time to start working on this lesson. So far I seem to have grasped the idea of the proportions and the line of action. I'm finding that the most helpful configuration is the trapezoid. I find it better than the two triangle method. It helps me establish the "thickness" of the figure and the posture it is in.

Here are my sketches so far. Apart from the first they are done in charcoal so as not to allow erasing. So please pardon all the smudging... that's my life history with charcoal!

[attachmentid=4743][attachmentid=4744][attachmentid=4745][attachmentid=4746]

lol my first drawing[attachmentid=4747]

I find that interesting Rose I found the triangle method easiest the trapeziod next and the cylinders to be exceedingly difficult maybe its a flow thing. The trapezoids and triangles flow with the body shape and the cylinders seem to misdirect me and I lose sense of proportion hence the "robot" feel .I also had better luck with the head system. This has been fascinating and reading what nutbuter said about preconceived notions of what should and should not be done is so true.

Wow, everyone is doing fantastic! After reading your comments - its interesting to see what works for some doesn't necessarily work for others. I'll start critiqueing these practice drawings as they come in.



Leonardo & Nutbuter - could you please make your pictures smaller? They should be around 200kb. It took me 18 minutes to wait for your picture to come up and a lot of us still use dial-up. Thanks

Tim - if the cylinder method doesn't work for you you can always use ovals between joints. Like between the elbow and the wrist and the elbow and the shoulder etc. But it is still important for you to know the method whether you use it or not.

Another tip - you can combine these methods to make them work for you.





Update:
Feeling much better today - went to doctor yesterday - got medicine - test results on Thursday or Friday. Thanks.

Funny you should mention the oval way. Last year ( when I was contemplating getting back into drawing ) I bought a wooden figure ( LOL can't remember the name of them) from Ikea you know the ones that are used for poses etc etc and its joints are oval. So I startd to put it into poses to copy . The more methods and suggestions the better ...I'm open to anything.Glad you are feeling better nothing worse than being sick as the weather gets better...flus and colds are for miserable weather.



Thanks for the suggestion

Tim - I think you're talking about a manikin. They are really nice to have because you always have someone to pose for you. Example: if you were drawing a landscape and you decided you wanted a fisherman in a boat in the background you could just pose the manikin and not need to look up a reference picture.



It just took me an hour to look at 8 pictures - so, those of you who are new or not aware of it............

once again - please make your pictures 200kb.......................I will not critique them if they take that long for me to see. There are 34 people in this class and it would be impossible for me to do them justice if I have to spend all that time waiting for a slow picture to come up. Thank you.

Thanks Kimbo...Great drawings every one Nice figures Cyn Kid... ...... Peewee

I was brave today and started to use ink...so no erasing .... and did these really fast...this time I think some look like Giant ants...lol....

Wow, Brian. I am impressed.. And you were worried about starting the figure drawing. See... You never know what you can do until you jump in there.. Great ants.

Cyn you always brighten my day....thanks for the push...this is a fun!

here is my work for today...I am not sure if they are 200kb or not...I havn't quite figured out how to make it that size yet. Please let me know if they need to be changed, should you need them bigger or smaller. These exercises sure are out of my comfort zone , but I enjoyed doing them and I learned something from them. It's starting to make sense. It was a challenge to work without erasing mistakes and correcting misplaced lines.


[attachmentid=4767] [attachmentid=4766] [attachmentid=4768] [attachmentid=4772]

This is a little tougher than I thought. Here it is. Thought I'd add this.

Wow Shutterbug and PeeWee... Nice trapezoids. I had a terrible time with them.. My son took my erasers away or I would have used them.

Awww Poor Poor Cyn. Here, this is just for you. LOL



Its not that you can't use an eraser - its that you really don't need to. All we are looking for is basic lines and scribblies. Gesture drawings.

All of you perfectionists - loosen up!

I am just wanting you to show me that you know what I mean when I tell you to draw a figure using trapezoids, ovals, cylinders, etc. and that you know how to "construct" your base before building onto it.

Here are mine done in pen.

Judyvan

Here are my sketches for today. These were done fairly quickly. So here goes nothing!!!

LOL

The last scan was terrible, so I am resubmitting lesson 1 exercise 1: body cavity stick figures in action

First, some stick figures I did in preparing for a character sketch in a tricky pose -- this was admittedly a few months ago, but I hope it still counts. The next two drawings I did just now.

Then some practicing I did with the trapezoids -- this is a new thing for me and I will have to try it more to see whether I like it. Some contour type drawings too, this is how I'm used to setting up figures once I have the pose down. These two were done in pen, which was very uncomfortable for me, which is probably a good indication that I need to do more of it.
[attachmentid=4792][attachmentid=4790][attachmentid=4791]

Thanks for the eraser Joanie. Great one too.

You're spot on Joanie!! I think if any of us are going to get anything out of this we will all have to be children together. I think our biggest effort should be to get ourselves out of the "impress everyone" mode and to get into the purely learning mode.

I've seen some very good sketches already. One thing I notice in quite a few of them though is that in the trapezoid constructions the top and bottom trapezoids are appearing to be almost equal in size. But assuming that the top trapezoid represents shoulders to navel and the bottom one navel to groin the length proportion should be 2:1.

Am I right about this teacher?

Todays drawings At first when I saw the lessons I was very intimidated and doubtful that I could do them, thinking they are wayyy to advanced. Now I am glad I didn't chicken out. This is a very enriching experience although time consuming.

[attachmentid=4796] [attachmentid=4797] [attachmentid=4795] [attachmentid=4798]

Rose - You are right - the trapezoid on the bottom that represents the hips is not as long as the one on top that represents the chest.

This is the type of correction that must be learned by each student. If they were to continue with drawing the body they would soon see that the proportions were wrong.

I am also glad I did not chicken out.....this is really helping me get the feel of movement and figures and learning proportions....I find this most difficult...I tried my exercise today without pencil and my giant eraser, and used black ink.

very nice Brian I've been lagging behind past few days so I need to pick it up a notch.

Here is todays. in ink

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be getting from the trapezoid and the triangle methods. The simplest way for me to do the trapezoid thing is to just draw ovals, or the cavity stick figure, and replace the ovals with trapezoids. I know the triangle is supposed to be "another way of measuring and getting your proportions correct", but I'm not really clear on how it's supposed to accomplish this.

Blade - the trapezoid method is just another way of doing it. It would be like picturing the human form as a bunch of building blocks instead of ovals. The trapezoid comes in because of the waist line otherwise you could use cubes to do the same thing.

The Triangular measurements are because the triangle that points down - meets at the groin. The other point of the 2nd triangle points up to the neck. Now the shoulder line should equal 2 or 2 1/3 heads wide. That will give you the correct measurement. Same with the Hips - The hips should be 2 or 2 1/3 wide so you have the same thing. This is a checking measurement to make sure the torso is in proportion.

Again, everyone:

There is no right or wrong way - everyone has their own methods of measuring just like everyone has their own style of drawing.

Hi
Here is my exercises

Rafael

Blade, at first, like you I could not really figure out the point of the two triangle method. But eventually I realised that what the triangles do, apart from establishing the correct width of shoulder and pelvis as Joanie said, is they correctly position the waistline.

The trapezoid I'm finding especially helpful in side view - giving me points of reference for placing the arms, apart from establishing the "thickness" of the body.

Hello everyone - its late and I'm going to run through this as quickly as I can. I would like for everyone to turn in their work as soon as they are finished with it. Even if it is in pages or one page at a time. At the end of this week I have a feeling I am going to get swamped.

Also, I notice there are some who have not submitted a figure drawing for me to keep until the end of the class. It should have been something you did first thing BEFORE continuing on with the lessons.

So far, out of 34 people who have signed up, I have only had responses from 12 people. If you are going to drop out of the class, please let me know so I can take you off my list. Just send me or Venus an email or PM. If I haven't heard from you by Sunday May 13th I will take you off the list automatically. Thanks.

Okay - here's the critique's that I have so far. It would be a good idea to read some of the comments in order to help you not make the same mistakes. I do not mean this to be offensive to anyone, its just late! LOL

Blade [attachmentid=4814]

Brian [attachmentid=4815][attachmentid=4816][attachmentid=4817]

Cyn [attachmentid=4818][attachmentid=4819]

Gmags [attachmentid=4820][attachmentid=4821][attachmentid=4822][attachmentid=4823]

JudyVan [attachmentid=4824][attachmentid=4825][attachmentid=4826][attachmentid=4827]
[attachmentid=4828][attachmentid=4829][attachmentid=4830]
Nutbuter[attachmentid=4831][attachmentid=4832][attachmentid=4833][attachmentid=4834]

PeeWee[attachmentid=4835][attachmentid=4836][attachmentid=4837][attachmentid=4838]

Raphael[attachmentid=4839][attachmentid=4840][attachmentid=4841][attachmentid=4842]

Rose [attachmentid=4843][attachmentid=4844][attachmentid=4845][attachmentid=4846]

Artfix[attachmentid=4847][attachmentid=4848][attachmentid=4849][attachmentid=4850]

Venus[attachmentid=4851][attachmentid=4852][attachmentid=4853][attachmentid=4854]

Shutterbug[attachmentid=4855][attachmentid=4856][attachmentid=4857][attachmentid=4858]
[attachmentid=4859][attachmentid=4860][attachmentid=4861]



Don't forget......................you must finish all of the exercises before I will send the next Lesson. This would be on Sunday May 13th.

Hi Joanie and Venus and all.

I am so sorry but I must sign out. I am so far behind and I don't know when I can go on with the class.
Our oldest dog is sick and that always distracts me. I sleep about 2-3 hours every night and while I have a look at her I could draw - but I cannot. Every calm minute my eyes cose I tried matches, toothpicks to keep my lids up - but they do what they want.

So I hope that this class will start over in a time and then I can paticipate. I had a look at all the exercises of you all and this class is great.

I miss you all very much and will be back soon. Hugs to all.