I thought I replied, but it is lost in space somewhere.

Thank you, Ernest for your honest opinion. Your encouragement is inspiring. I will check out the tutorials you mentioned.

NCgirl, that is great, I am sure she will treasure it always!

Rahn, excellent work, your eagle really stands out!
As to feathers it is a matter of patience and following the shade and light indications. Do what your eyes tell you is there not your head.

hello all.
this is the first time I have posted here.

i started drawing about 2 months ago. I have been doing digital art for a few years now and thought I'd have a crack at drawing.
so i picked up a (few) gel pens and had a go.


The first one was inspired by an old friend who lived in india for a year.
The second was an inspired drawing by someone I met. So I drew parts of their personality as best I could.
the third drawing is for a friend at the army.. something to put on her wall
The fourth drawing, is the first one I did. I went to the city and sat in the park.. it was nice and came up with that.
The last picture is the second drawing I have done.. just a front cover for my little book.

I'm just wondering what you guys think I could do better, and possibly some techniques I could use to improve my style.
cheers!

Cool looking work!

I suppose you could work on making things look more three-d so they stand out more specifically from the background. Maybe playing with your lights and darks to give shape. For example, your freedom page, from a distance looks like a sunflower, the bird could pop up a bit more. A slightly whiter belly and front wing, slightly darker back wing.
A bit of sculpting that from a distance draws you in and then the deeper message is in the details between the black and white. Trying standing back from your work so you can't see the detail and get a feel for where you want to go solid black, solid white or the scrolly detail (shades of grey) to make your picture say what you want from a distance.

This is purely conjecture on my part and should be taken with a grain (or cup) of salt.

About all I could suggest would be to not be so black and white. If you incorperated more shading, a wider rang of contrast. This would give you the ability to give your work more depth. That said, I like your style it harks back to my younger years. It reminds my of the poster art of the '70s.

Hi, I would like some comments on my latest drawing. I cannot see how I can improve it and some advice would be great.
I like playing with words in my drawings very much. For example, once I learned a new idiom in English: 'The green eyed monster." I learned that it expresses jealousy and I liked the idea, I decided to draw it.
This one is another idiom from Turkish. In this one I wanted to use some sarcasm though. It is culture-specific, so let me explain the idiom: "Kapida kalmak" This idiom is used for old ladies who has never got married. In Turkey, the normal age of getting married for a girl is about 30. After this age, if you have not married yet, you can be a "kapida kalmis girl" Anyway the word-by-word translation: To be at the door. or To stay at the door. In my picture, the girl is not at the door, but the door is at the girl. Like the door is refusing to leave the girl.
I want to submit it for an exhibition and I want it to be accepted very much, so I am eager to try any suggestions. Thank you very much in advance.
English is not my mother tongue, so forgive me and don't hessitate to ask me if I cannot express myself very well. Thanks again.

Hi Peribocegi,
I couldn't tell you what would be accepted or not at an exhibition.
But I could give you some of my impressions, you must take it with a grain of salt. (Meaning, I could be right or I could be wrong??)
I love the concept, the door following the unmarried girl, like a stigma that she and the door must carry.
I think your composition is good the one third/two thirds idea. The lizard brings you back into the picture which is good.
The door shadow going off the page is a bit distracting, draws my eye that way.
I am a high contrast person, so I like how your colours get richer at the outside edges.
I think you could go further with this, maybe adding some contrasting colours to liven the colours even more.
The same in your shadow, it is a little muddy.
I am not sure but I think the lizard would have a long shadow like the door??
Also I would check the shadow for the right side of the door.
It is a great picture, I hope you do well with the exhibition!

So, I haven't posted here in ages, and I recently picked up a drawing tablet for my computer. My first two works so far, I've done a recreation of another artists Grim Reaper (With his complete permission of course) and a fan art piece that I'm currently working on from the game Halo. They're attached.Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment

The fan art piece is looking amazing, can't wait to see it with colour!
It already without shading looks 3-d and you have a great map to get going.

The Grim Reaper is cool!
The body is looking a bit flat, a bit more shaping is needed to pull it off the page.
The couple of finished drawings that you have posted all have an outline to define edges. If this is purely your style then that is great, but...
I checked on some Halo pictures to see if they use outlining and they don't so I would expect that your new drawing (being fan art) will define edges with tones and shading, no outlining. If you have never done this it can seem to be difficult, like it needs that line to be right. You will find though that it isn't all that hard and you already have the skills to do it.
I look forward to seeing how you do.

Thank you very much for your comments. I agree that the shadow will be much better if complete. The shadow colour - could you advise me a colour (I am using soft pastels of Rembrant brand). I used a brown, didn't like it, used more yellow and then it became mud I will post again once I make a change.

I have never used pastel, I can tell you what I would do with colour pencil.
I would use some purple, I would play a bit to see what shade of purple makes you yellow darken up.
You can also use touches of other colours around, not many colours to choose on this one, just for future reference.
In the blue up near the corners I would try some orange, or introduce some, darker blues, again try on a separate paper to see what works.
Try the purple in your yellow corners also.
Just remember try it out on a separate paper since I am not sure what works with pastel and you have to see if it works for your taste.

This drawing is of Sarah Brightman from her Symphony photoshoot, of course the top part of her hair were you see what looks like leaves should have been braids but I couldn't really understand how to draw them so I turned them into leaves.

I am looking for honest critique, but not to the point where I'm getting put down, or bashed because my drawing skill is limited. I'm looking for help, not a put down.

This drawing was in done in hb and I think 2b. It's been a while and I can't remember which I used, but I'm very known for over using hb pencils.

Hi Skeller,

I think your shading is well blended. I like the nose area and mouth. Maybe the eyes could be better defined, becaus that gives character to the drawing. Also, the hair could have been a bit finer. The chin looks a little crooked to me, maybe on the left side of the drawing. But overall you did a very good job. The likeliness is there and I don't mind the leaves. Maybe next time, to help us, you can post the original image as well. We can compare and show discrepancies that have an impact on the drawing.

Hope this is of help for you,

Hi guy's,

now it's my turn to seek for help. I've done everything I can see on my drawing and now I need your criticism and advice to get one step further. Since I'm too lazy to take classes, I'm taking advantage of your knowledge to try to get better through my work.

I've posted the original, and the drawing. I've tried to bring the focus to the eyes a bit more by removing some of the wrinkles and giving more light into the eyes, compared to the picture. What do you see could be done differently to make it better. Are there any regions that bug your eye, shadows that disturb your view, or whatever else.

Please I'm really looking for sound advice, so don't spare me I can take whatever is said and make it mine...or not . I know the comments are for the drawing, not the artist.

So thanks for your time

Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment

hey thought id join in on the fun here's a few drawings

Hi there ! Welcome to the forum.
First of all, I must say that I like your style. It reminds me of what Jhonen Vasquez did in his 1-page interstices in the 'Johnny the Homicidal Maniac' comics (sorry for the gory reference. I do not recommend these comics for the faint-hearted, only to those who share the same sick sense of humor as mine ).
As to what you can do 'better', that really depends on where you want to take your art. If you want to stick with your current style, I would suggest to work on composition (where to place your subject(s) in your drawing). You could also try adding shades, like was already suggested. You could try hatching, cross-hatching, squirkles, or pens/markers of various shades of grey.
Great mandala by the way !
Just my 2 cents !

Hi

in my opinion =

well done - but

Eyes = too round - would have to be elliptical

Darker shade under the eyebrow

Shadow on her left eye as dark as on the right eye

that`s all

( sorry for my bad english )

Hi,

thanks for the input. Unfortunately I've already fixed and hanged my drawing yesterday. May be next time.

I sat down late on Valentine's Day night and drew this piece without any pitures to go by... I'm looking for what I don't see, is there something I'm doing wrong? Is there something I need to work on? Am I missing something?

I guess you could say this drawing might be of Sarah Brightman, but then it might not be. This drawing looks like the smile might turn into a laugh, or it could just be my eyes. LOL

Any help would be great!

Hey skeller1980

in my mind :

.. the background is too dark
.. the distance between the eyes to big ( should be an eye-size )
.. the nasal tip contour has too much and the sheets could be uniform
.. the hair hangs down just boring - would better undulating, lacking contrast
.. the momentum approach on their right eye is barrely visible

.. the eys are very beautuful
.. the shading on the face, chin and neck also
.. the mimik looks cheerful - that`s good drawing

at least = the comment are for the drawing, not the artist.

Hello Skeller,

You did a good job drawing from your imagination. If you want to get better proportions you should consider laying down some guide lines before you start drawing. These guides will help you with your proportions as you draw. You can move them around a bit to try and get a better likeness. Have a look at the drawing lesson for Adult Facial Proportions.

Regards,

hi people.. in last month or two im working on just likeness when i draw people... not shadowing, not tehnique but just likeness with few lines here and there...

so please comment.. is this ok? what do you think? all comments are welcome..

what medium are you using ?

this boys face is awsome...his eyes are so expessive ...his smile makes you smile when you look at him ....he is simply a beautiful boy .

just a drawing pencil and some charcoal...
do you think I got some likeness?



yes, his eyes and smile are beautifull... and it's very hard to transfer it to a drawing (for me!)... it's the reason why I post it here to see if I got some likeness or not..

so be totally honest and say I didn't get it so I can try again..

How are you approaching the drawing? Are you freehanding it or have you tried a grid? I suspect freehand so I would suggest using a grid for the easiest path to a likeness. You'll find the smallest little thing will affect that likeness .. you are in the general area. Practice is the "secret" ...

Ken

ty for your comment! yes, Im freehanding it... but I guess I must try with a grid...
I got it, I'll try again..

Yes, I believe you got a likeness especially in the mouth area and without a grid is quite exceptional . Practise is definitely the key and using a grid would get feature placement exact but I like your idea of freehanding as well it is good practise. Good job.

Hello reader(s)
i've read some of the comments here
and you seem to give very good insight
about the drawings/paintings,
so i'm asking for your help,
you see I have this problem with drawings,
i ruin them by adding shades
(or at least that's what i think)
anyway, this is my latest "work",

can i still save this drawing
or should i keep it
pinned on the wall as a reminder
of my mistakes?

(.... by the way the drawing is based
on a picture from the challenges section,
just in case you're wondering.)

Hi StationaryClouds. I don't think you ruin drawings with shading ... the problem is the shading does not clearly identify the light source. I haven't looked at the reference, but I think you should practice looking at the values within the reference. Sometimes it really helps to turn it into a grayscale (B&W) image so you can see the nuances of tone. Each stone will show a highlight, midtones and shadow. It might help you to find a photo of a stone or a rock and try to draw that. Selecting a fairly simple (single subject) type of image will probably help so you don't get overwhelmed by too much. Then turn it into a B&W image and pay close attention to where highlights turn into midtones and then shadows. It can also help to put your drawing up next to the B&W reference and try to get your values to match as closely as possible. You will undoubtedly be surprised at how dark things actually are. When you draw, try to concentrate on a very small area - say one face of the rock or one stone in this one. And work on it till you have the shapes of the highlights, midtones and shadows matching the reference.

Paying attention to small nuances of light and shadow are important in all forms of drawing. I generally do portraits, but it's the blacks/darks that push areas back (like eye sockets) and lights bring them forward. Practice learning to see such things and then draw them as best you can ... it won't take long before you amaze yourself.

Don't give up on learning to sculpt (as I call it) ... it's what will bring your drawings really to life. Leaving it as nothing more than lines is OK but leaves so much yet possible. Keep practicing ... it's really the big "secret" to graphite ... that and patience.

Ken

good idea, now that you mention it, i wasn't spending enough time with the reference image,
also I missed small details.
for now I'll try with a "simple type" of image so i can get a better approach at more complex ones.

thanks!!

Hello everyone =D

I've been drawing for a few years now. But my drawings were mostly just quick sketches with little or no shading or anything. And many of them I used no reference, or a picture of a fictional character. Never anything real like a photo of someone. Lately though I've been trying my hand at "real" drawings. The first photo below is what my old stuff used to look like, and the second Is one of my first attempts at a drawing of a friend of mine. I am new at this sort of drawing, and I was hoping someone here could give me a few tips of what to improve on. I didn't use a grid or anything, it was freehand, and I don't have the reference photo available on hand.

Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment

Good start. Much better than my first attempts at a "real" drawing. Here's a few things that I have found helpful:

1)All of our brains are wired to recognize things, eyes, noses, cars, so on.... To draw well you have to be able to shut that part of the brain off. For example, instead of seeing an eye, you must be able to forget everything you know about eyes and see only lines, tones, highlights, etc.

2)Many of the lessons on this site are excellent so work through them

3)I highly recommend the book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain"

4)Learn general proportions of the face (or figure) from one of the above resources (or just google)

Great start to your next steps in development!!!! Without gridding and using freehand style, try using your pencil by pinching it with your thumb and index finger as your guide to measurements for porportions and alignment. Draw not only what you see but what you know, sometimes photo references can lack important information. It is only with practise and then more practise that your eye (and brain) will learn and be trained to pick out more tones and highlights, and then it is just a matter of translating it to paper. With each new drawing you will learn something new and then be able to utilize that knowledge on the next and it won't be long before you'll be amazing yourself! I do use a grid and highly recommend it for realism sake but if it is not your thing it is very admirable if you develop your talents without. Plain tissue is great for blending larger areas, a q-tip for tight spots, a kneaded erasers picks up graphite to get a whole gamit of tonal changes, there is just so much to learn and so much fun to be had!!!! I could go on forever. Oh and of course each and every one of the tutorials on this site will get you where you want to be that much quicker! Have fun!

A very good start, well done. To improve your drawing skills I would suggest concentrating on understanding negative and positive space and working with tonal gradation ie. creating a value scale. An understanding of negative and positive space will improve your powers of observation and enable you to draw freehand without a grid. Creating a value scale will improve your shading and understanding of tonal values. There are very good lessons available on the site, that will explain the techniques in more detail. Enjoy the process and have fun.
Kind Regards Wayneo

Hi Stationary Clouds,

I don’t think that you have ruined the drawing by shading, shading or adding tonal value is one of the techniques used to create depth, form and structure. The archway in the drawing is a good example of this, without shading you would not have achieved the depth and structure in the form. The centre of the drawing is the area that you have shaded. The left hand side has very little shading and by comparison it has no form or structure. You have not ruined the drawing, keep on working with it and develop it further, you are on the right track.

Post your progress, it would be interesting to see how you complete it.
Kind Regards Wayne O

thanks, although um... i can't finish it now you know
that drawing um it's uh it's.... it's in a better place now
Anyway I'm currently working on another one.
(and hopefully i'll be more um... kind(?) )

Hi everyone

I wont submit any of my drawings here yet ( you probably use 2 whole pages just pointing out what I already realize anyways ) but I do have a couple of questions... I tend to outline everything to hard,and no matter what I do to prevent it,it seems at the end I done it again.Any tips or techniques on how I can get rid of this habit?
Otherwise, I read some thinks values should start with darker and then you work towards lighter,and some say from lighter to darker.Is it all just up to what you personally prefer?
I also have a little tendency to make things sometimes too dark,so would either one of these be better then the other for me trying to stop doing this?

As far as the outlines go: I bet you're holding your pencil the same way for drawing as you do for writing. This is not what you want to do. Try holding your pencil in an "overhand" grip with your fingertips, halfway or more to the eraser end of the pencil -- i.e., away from the tip. Then let the weight of the pencil do most of the work, rather than pressing down yourself. You can't do all of your drawing this way, but you can do a lot of it -- and it's nearly impossble to make dark outlines this way!

Hi Zaynab. Outlining too hard it a bad habit and one you should try to break. However, it would help to use a softer graphite (like 2B) because it won't damage the paper and you can either erase it or blend it into the drawing more easily. Using a hard pencil is likely to damage the paper fibers.

I can't speak for anyone but me, however I always work from lighter to darker in light or medium toned skin. The reason I do this is that I am a bit of a hyper realistic artist and I don't much like tooth. For me, the smoother the paper the better. So I fill the tooth with 4H pencils (drawing on the side) and after 6 or so layers I finally have a pretty smooth and slick surface to draw on. Then I build up values with more layers - this is with F or perhaps 2H, sometimes HB or 2B. In any case, I like to have plenty of graphite down before I start with the softer graphite. This makes getting blacks harder and isn't a good technique to use for that, but for human skin I think it is an excellent method.

I think it would be a good thing for you to learn not to go too hard and too dark though ... pencil control is REALLY important in all aspects of drawing.

Ken

Thanks both of you,Ernest and Sparrowhawk,for great advice
I will try both changing my grip and working with softer pencils. I guess what I have to do now is practice,practice,practice...
Thanks again

Requesting help and critique on another cat drawing. This one is also a gift for a friend, so I want to get it right. This particular work has crossed a few hurdles, and this is actually the second attempt - I scrapped the first one - didn't like the pencils, didn't like the paper and an incident with bee pee. It has been challenging to do since the photo I was working from was small and blurry (attached). Ken enlarged it for me, but a lot of the cat's markings were guesswork on my part. So... how can I improve this drawing?

This is the sketch
Click to view attachment

This is the reference photo
Click to view attachment

This is the first version (glad I scrapped it!)
Click to view attachment

I'm certainly no expert, but there are a couple of thing that strike me. The hairs in her ears seem to be growing at wrong angle and the hairs at the top of her head should be done with sharper pencil. I really like her eyes and nose. I hope that someone who knows more than me can give you more help.

Hi ncgirl!
My wife collects cats, we have had 2 die in the past year and are down to 10. I can not say I have painted many cat picture but I have been in your situation many times. When I am at this point in a project, I put the 2 pictures (my drawing and the reference) into one and size them the same using something I think is correct. Then I can see what is off. I used the top of the ears and head to size these. The left (from our point of view) ear is a bit to tall but I don't think that is all that important. Some or the areas I see that need attention are the eyes, nose and marking under the eyes and over the nose. I think the eyes are a bit to large and the area you have left white should be smaller and darker. The center of the nose has a lighter area that that has a distinct shape and there are dark markings over the bridge of the nose. These are all very important if you want the portrait to look like the subject. Concentrate on the face, the reference is bad but in some ways this may be to your benefit. If it were in full detail you would probably go nuts looking at it. Try and match the shapes of the shading even if you can not get the fine detail. For instance there looks to be 5 whisker pads on the right not 4 and the ones on your drawing are curved and I do not think they are in the reference. Also the lines for the mouth are straight. Do some google image searches for these particular areas of the cats face, make sure you choose show only large or extra large images. This will help you put detail where there is none in your reference. eyes: http://images.google.com/images?imgsz=huge...=40&ndsp=20
Cats face: http://images.google.com/images?imgsz=huge...mp;aq=f&oq=

I hope this was helpful!

Click to view attachment

I am struggling a bit with a similar issue as ncgirl (well, sort of - hair/fur). I really want this cow to have a more realistic hair look, particularly on the white part of the head, and I have no idea how to draw white hair. I understand theoretically that you're not actually drawing white hair, but rather shadows behind the white hair, but for some reason, it's not clicking in my brain. I had a dream about drawing realistic hair last night, but when I woke up, what I was doing in my dream didn't work (shocking, I know! ). Anyway, I'm looking for any suggestions that anyone has on any part of this project, but particularly the hair portion would be extremely helpful as I'm trying to get this project to look better. I thank you in advance for your thoughts. The project is on 22X30 inch paper, so I can't scan, but rather had to take a picture to upload, so the quality isn't quite as good as it could be (my apologies).

One thing you must do is decide where your light source is coming from. This will determine where your shadows are. If you are not using a reference photo, that would be where to start. Find an image that is of a real cow in a similar post and use that to work from. http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&...ace&spell=1 Pay attention to direction of hair and use reductive techniques, add the graphite and then erase to get the lighter values. Get a pencil eraser (looks like a pencil but has an eraser rather then graphite in it) sharpen it and then use a razor blade to cut a chisel tip on it. Wear old blue jeans and clean off the tip on you pant leg between strokes. This is the technique I am using to render blond hair hightlights on a portrait of Simon Baker. Good luck and I hope this was of some help

Airscapes... thank you! I have a pencil eraser, but didn't even think about sharpening it... I was just aggrevated that it was too thick to work properly for hair. I think that will at least get me started on a better path than what I was attempting. I will give that a whirl and see how it goes. Many thanks again.

Airscapes, Please explain to me how you put two pictures side by side in the same frame.....I know its been explained before but I have my senior moments and this one escapes me, but I know its really helpful. Thanks

You need some sort of photo editing software, each program has different steps and I am not familiar with many other than the one I use. I used microsoft pictureit to do this, I open a new blank photo and then add the 2 individual photos to the blank one. Next you drag the small of the 2 so it matches the other one in size. Next crop the 2 photos and save as a new file. This could also be called making a collage I guess and may be how it is worded in some of the photo editor. Sorry I can not be more helpful on this, but there are dozens of programs out there that could be used to do this.

airscapes and mumwond, thanks for the pointers. I worked on the drawing some more over the weekend, just blended in a few areas that I didn't like, but you're right, there are distinctive markings over her little nose that I completely missed. And her ear hairs, either my friend really has a bad camera or kitty has very light hair. On both pictures, there's no indication of the ear hair, although I know it's there, all cats have them. I'll look at my own cats and model the hair on them. I'll go back and add in your other suggestions also.

Here's the version from this weekend, without your suggestions, after I add those in, I'll post again! Thanks!

Click to view attachment

airscapes, I think I win the cat collecting prize this week - I currently have 19 - which is a low number for me. Most of them are semi-feral, they will accept human attention, but don't seek it out. Only three or four are indoor cats. We spay/neuter all of them and give them the 10 acres of swamp land to run around and play in. They come in for shelter and food at night.

Good for you! My wife would have many more but we live in the city and she does not let them out. Most of ours are feral rescues from the neighborhood. I just tell myself that this is way less expensive than kids, and they don't borrow my car!