So today I tried to extend myself and draw more of the figure (rather than just the head). I also wanted to use some markers for colour as yesterday I found the wet paint restricted my ability to turn the page and keep sketching.
This is what I wrote on Instagram this morning:
Continuing to push myself for #oneweek100people2017 – today it was markers and more of the figure (rather than just faces) but this cafe is a bit too quiet. I am rushing more today and thinking about the colour, is meaning that I’m not as careful with my lines. But it’s all forward progress! Even if I’m not as happy with the result – the flow is there. So the goal is to work out what is the next aspect to research and learn about.
All my thoughts are included in the notes on the sketches, but the big takeaway for me today was that I really need to get on to some research into drawing the full figure and the figure moving. Yes, I want to look more carefully at the features and improve my portraits, but to be more versatile I need to switch to looking at the whole person. To achieve some improvement in that regard I need to put away the colour so I can just focus on improving my observation and capturing the gestures.
Here is a little research from Thor’s book on the different walking poses. Drawing this out and making my own emphasis(the heavy black lines) has helped a lot.
Day 4 Tip: If you are unhappy with your sketches, take some time to look at some books and draw/write some notes. It will make a big difference to how you see and that will in turn improve your drawings.
I have to admit that this week has been so crazy (both all the social media engagement and my workload) and tomorrow I am teaching and doing some workshop prep. So I am glad that I only have 9 to go.
How are you going? Seeing steady improvement? Or is it up and down? Are you doing any research each day?
12 Comments
Hi Liz,
when you first posted about the challenge my thought was just “this sounds crazy, I could never do it. I can’t draw people anyway, so this is something I would never attempt!”
Monday I had a conversation on Instagram where I said that only practice makes us better, and then suddenly I said to myself “just try it, no one needs to know about how you fail”. Grabbed some Magazines and started (sketching in public is another thing I find really hard, that’s another challenge, so I just do it from pictures right now). The first sketches were horrible, but I was shocked that I made real progress at the end od day one. Now I am at no 65 and I can’t believe how far I’ve come. Not only that I kept going, but how much better my sketches are. They don’t look exactly like the people on the pictures, but they do look like people and faces and not like alien monsters ????
You can find my sketches on my instagram page https://www.instagram.com/_steinwaelzer_/
So thanks for challenging me, it’s hard but totally worth it!
I feel that I can now see the forms much quicker and some of the drawings are really alike. When I work without lines (watercolor) I think more in areas of color and that makes the pictures more interesting. Find the hard black line sometimes not so nice, maybe I should try brown. I understand which parts of the faces I still find difficult. Want to get even more loose drawings, but the SEEING I’m doing now is also very important and basic.
Thank you and Mark for this Invitation, would like to come over quickly, but it is quite far. Maybe see you once in a course in Europe, Liz!! Your explanations are very helpful.
This sounds like an excellent challenge, I’d love to try something like this myself, it seem like a great way of loosening up.
I can’t claim to be doing well but at least improving. Today I finished the “100” at Westfield Shopping Centre, Food Court, Helensvale Qld- although there were plenty of people (subjects), lots of movement which often gave the sketcher plenty of challenges.
During my 100 I tried a number of pens and ink discovering the subjects were more clearly formed with a medium nib or at least not fine. Today my “work” was finished mainly with a Lamy and Noodlers ink and although it was a fine nib it is not so fine as others in my collection.
Having spent a few hours for a few days in the same vicinity I felt I became part of the furniture and had no difficulty, having decided on the next subject, to be engrossed in that. I had been seasoned a little beforehand having spend a month in a shopping centre in Komatsu Japan during the snowy weather and a month, earlier in coffee shops, particularly Mr Donuts, ( free second/third/fourth etc coffee’s ) during the very hot days last July. I now have to complete the “assignment” by adding colour to the waterproof ink sketches.
A good experience – just wish I could get close to matching you, Marc and Suhita. Thanks for the initial inspiration. Bruce Martin
Liz, I just want to thank you for this wonderful challenge! I won’t complete it (I only draw 34 people so far – still there are 2 days to go), but I already know that this is all what I love. Drawing people is certainly the most difficult task for an artist, so there must be commitment to draw them constantly on every occasion available. It’s so much more comfortable to stay home and draw from photos. I spent the last 2 days on the lookout for living subjects in my favorite cafés and a library, and eventually experienced some kind of addictive “flow”, which made it easier to go on. I noticed that I progressed mostly in being able to draw “moving targets”, I feel how my memory has improved as I get used to always finding the same features in (approximately) the same place. A great reward is knowing that you and other seasoned sketchers are taking the challenge, and it’s hugely interesting to read your posts on the subject, sharing the issues you had, which are all the same for everybody.
I enjoy your methodic approach, with research and all, because usually I’m just sketching as it goes (using “feeling edges” and “abstracting shapes” as I learned in your Foundation course) – and that’s it. I don’t have much anatomical knowledge beyond that, so every tip from you is useful – especially on such complicated topic as walking legs (I didn’t tackle it till know).
The question is now how to sustain my effort once the challenge is over.
I am enjoying this challenge a lot. I can’t do sketches from life because of how i work so i try to complete the sketches when i wake up and when I am in the car before i start working. I can definitely say this challenge has made figures more approachable. I also have done all my sketches in ball point pen and i realise i really love sketching with the ball point pen. I want to practice more with it. Also I have the whole process of drawing figures too complicated in my head……..like i have captured what the person is doing, that’s enough! it doesn’t have to be perfect! I also have realised my weak points and the areas of the face and figure that I don’t understand. So this way, I can work on them to make my drawings better. Hopefully I get to do this from life this weekend, doing this challenge makes that seem less daunting. I have 20 more drawings to go!!!!! I think i can do it.
Well,I am doing horribly at getting out and about this week….life got in the way. But I am enjoying following your postings and those of several others! My hundred in a week has, my necessity, expanded into hundred in a month! Alas…. But thank you for mentioning Thor’s book….dug it out and enjoying it all over again with his many great suggestions.
Your sketches look really good. I like your idea of taking notes on them so you know what you may need to work on. Doing research is something that is a good idea to help capture the gestures. I always get to the feet and say, “Now what?” The foot position and the shoes especially give me a hard time. I found a great place for people today, our motor vehicle department and got so caught up in sketching that I finished all the way to 100 today!
What brand of markers did you use? Some of the colors? It all looks great!
I was going to refer you to that drawing of walking legs in Thor’s book, and then I scrolled down and saw that you had already studied it! Did you know that that walking drawing and the ellipses lesson from your workshop handout (Paraty, I think) are two things I carried around for about a year, tucked into the back of my sketchbook, for handy reference! 🙂
– Tina
what book(s) would you rcommend for faces?
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