FlashMob: Russian letter Б

Hi all!

Last week I started participating in another new project. These are flash-mobs ran by Natali Ratkovski, a Russian designer based in Germany (notice that the log is in Russian).

When the subject was announced last week - I loved it. My head immediately started working and I made a long list of objects starting with a letter "Б" (equivalent with B). I chose a Drum and a Tambourine.

When drawing a children drum I first observed the object trying to understand what colors I should use. Not an easy task, I must tell you.

I had a great time drawing these but here's the question: why are the images so bright? Is it because of the white paper? Or is it the quality of a paper that doesn't match the medium? Or is it because of the fact that these are really simple and cheap colored pencils? I don't know... I'll give it another go and then I will probably go and buy myself a proper set of colored pencils.

In the meanwhile I'll start exploring the subject and try to find tips for colored pencils drawing.

Have a great day,
Dalia

Drawspace lesson I05: How to draw a striped fur

Hi all,

We continue to draw animal drawing and this time we do stripes. I immediately thought of Zebras and Tigers, as those who has such a fur. So, at least, when I draw a Tiger, not everything will be new to me.

Two types of fur presented here: circular and wavy.

I don't know what's the mistake I made here. It just doesn't really look like fur. So I tried to draw it again.

While doing this second set I thought that maybe the reason for the fur being unrealistic is that my hatches are too even in it's length. As much as I tried to vary the lines, it was not easy. So I think I'll put it to my "lessons to repeat" list.

Hope you were more  successful here then I was,
Dalia

Drawspace lesson I04: how to draw a spotted hair

Hi hi,

This lesson is about drawing fur. To be more precise, a spotted fur - double challenge. Not only it's about short strikes but also it's about graduated ones. So let's deal with it. Welcome to lesson I04 of a Drawspace art program.

What we do is we draw several different shaped large spots - I'd call them clouds - and we fill it with short and thin strokes. Which means pencils have to be freshly sharpened. 

I decided to do a half scaled sketch, feeling too intimidated.

There are two sketches.
Here fur was done first and spots second.

And here - spots and then the hair.

I'm not sure whether one is better than the other; I somehow feel that something was left unsaid in this lesson, because my fur doesn't look like Breanda's fur in the lesson. Or maybe it's just the luck of practice.

I decided to take a challenge and did this fur ball. First step was to create a place spot clouds and shading guidelines.

After that I filled the circle with short strokes.

This fur ball doesn't look that bad, but I still cannot break the code of drawing fur. I wish do you have some tips for me? How can I perfect it? 

If you have any ideas, do share here.

Have a great day,
Dalia

Drawspace I03: how to draw a Dalmatian's eye.

Hi all!

Today we deal with an eye of a Dalmatian. Dalmatians are beautiful creatures, friendly and playful. Bearing this though in my mind I gladly began this task.

It was a long draw since this kind of drawing (just like hair) takes time but I finished it easily.

The thing is that after giving it a second look I've realized that my shading made the sketch too flat. So I've decided to give it another try. I still didn't want to smooth it, but decided to do the shading more circular.

Although not perfect, but better, don't you think?

I actually wanted to do some ore eyes for challenge but got stuck and didn't draw for almost two weeks. I then decided to move on to the next lesson.

See you soon,
Dalia

Drawspace lesson I02: How to draw a dogie's nose.

Hi all.

Apparently, Section I is all about drawing dogs and other animals. I love dogs. I had one in my youth, a beautiful Irish Setter who died at the age of 15. She was smart, stunning, elegant and very very spoiled :) So as for me - this section is a very special one.

In this lesson we are set to draw a nose of a dog. Two points of view - front and 45 degrees to side.

I started with a front one.

It was pretty easy to do - you just have to follow the sketches. The hardest and the longest part here was the squirkling. I did enjoy it since it was quite a while since I practiced them, so I should thank Ms. Hoddinot for including them here again.

This is the second sketch.

And then, just for the fun of it I did two more sketches - this and this.

While drawing I've realized that I'm patient enough now to do this kind of task. More than that - I enjoyed it.

I love these sketches. Just like in the previous post, I find them really nicely done.

I hope you enjoyed this lesson as much as I did.

Have a great day,
Dalia

Drawspace lesson I01: how to draw a fluffy puppy?

Hi all,

Today we start a new section of a Drawspace art program and will be working on Lessons of the Section I (I01).

The subject here is a cute and fluffy cartoon puppy with big nose and a round muzzle. The task here is to practice form, perspective and Squirkling as a form of shading.

This is the sketch.

It didn't take me too long to complete the sketch so I decided to draw some more of these cartoon cuties. I chose to draw head only since the lesson was about a dog's head.

Here it is.

And that's the other.

After finishing those two I decided to continue with the self-challenges and made a sketch of this puppy.

And then I did this one.

I didn't aim for a perfect resemblance; all I wanted was for my sketches to look like dogs, nothing more. And I think I achieved it here.

For me it was one of the cutest lessons to do. I love dogs and there were many times I tried to draw my late now dog, an Irish setter. I know can maybe say that soon I will be able to make a portrait of hers. Looking at these sketches now, while finishing this post, I must admit that this is the very first time that I love every single line of these sketches! It doesn't mean they are perfect, but for some reason they are very dear to me.

I hope you loved them too.

Have a great day,
Dalia

Where to get from ideas for your blog?

Hi all,

Tell me, where do you get ideas for your blogs? This question gets asked a lot, I think, since the invention of writing: what the hell should I be writing now?
I've read countless numbers of these posts. Every single blogger wrote about it. Every single blogger made a list of ideas of how to get rid of a writer's block.

For me - it's simple. I get ideas as I write and create. I get ideas as I do stuff. I read and I ask questions. At this moment I have more than 70 posts in my draft list - and that's beside the countless Drawspace lessons I post every other day. And (thank god) ideas keep on coming. Yeah, I know, my main theme here is drawing and not posts writing, but still...

Since every blog has a specific theme, usually his writing evolves around it. When I write, I let my mind care for two things. The Drawspace art project and everything related to it. It's like free flow thinking. I also ask questions and I try to become more efficient at what I do.

I'll give you a simple example. I started drawing seriously quite recently. Obviously, at some point I decided to make a process more efficient since I'm on some kind time schedule. My problem at the time were my pencils and my pencil holder. All of my pencils were standing tips up so I wasted plenty of time looking for the pencil grade I needed. I started to think of a solution and then I got this idea. And I think this kind of post can be useful for people in the field. After all, who wants to spend time looking for a right pencil, especially when you know that it's somewhere inside the standing-infront-of-you box.

So write.
Create.
Ask questions. The "Why and How" are important and helpful.
Flow with the process and it will come.

Have a great day,
Dalia

How to draw: Drawspace lessons section H - thoughts and conclusion

Hi all!

This is a very special post. It is special since it's the first time I will be concluding a section. I'm done with Section H (finally!), the one that dealt with human drawing. As far as of now it was the most challenging section for me. Mainly because I don't intend to draw a human figure. With that said I totally understand that as an illustrator I will have to deal with the subject at some point; I will not maybe have to create a realistic human body/face but time will come when I'll have to draw a human look like cartoon. And I won't be able to do that until I learn to draw a human figure properly.

Going through the sketches I did for this section I realize that I've learned very little - there were almost no challenges and I didn't bother to create them myself. I know that this is the biggest mistake I've made so far but there was a good reason for that. I do want to go on with the program and complete it as soon as possible. I want to practice the easy things first and then move on to those I find the hardest. It's like in a school exam: solve the easiest problem first, then move on to the hardest. That's exactly the reason I created my "Drawspace lessons to repeat" list - to remember what to go back to.

The thing with the human figure is the same as with any other subject you learn to draw, be it a simple vase, a Rose or a child's face - you have to practice! One chewed sketch will not do! Never! Practice is everything. But I do believe that if you practice, concentrate on a subject and draw it constantly, you will master it. Last year, 2012, I committed to a flower drawing. I dedicated a full month to the subject, looking for different ways to draw each and every one of them. I won't tell that I can draw a Rose from a memory now, but I'm sure that if I have one before my eyes I will be able to do it better than if I would 3 years ago.

With that said, I will be moving to section I of a Drawspace art program.

Have a great day,
Dalia

Drawspace lesson H17: how to draw a human figure

Hi all,

This is the last lesson of Section H that deals with a human body. I read this lesson with a great interest as it gives you both a practical drawing technique as well as the theoretical explanation about the drawn subject. This is a very important lesson and you should really read it. I already added it to my "Lessons to repeat" list.

I didn't really made any sketches to it since I was too intimidated by the challenge (and I'm very ashamed with it), but I don't feel I'm ready yet for this level of drawing.

Nothing more to add.

Have a great day,
Dalia

Drawspace lesson H16: How to draw a baby using squares - 2

Hi all,

Lesson H16 also deals with square drawing. To write anything about it would be repeating my last post.

I will only share the sketch with you.

As you can see the face is a bit crooked, I guess the mistake is in the cheek line, it should have been a bit lower.

Anyways, this is it. No challenge and no challenge drawing.

Have a great day,
Dalia.

Drawspace lesson H15: how to draw a baby's face with four squares.

Hi all,

Today we'll be doing lesson H15 and draw a face of a baby. This lesson comes with some great theoretical explanations about proportions and measurements of a baby's face. These explanations are wonderful since they help to understands clearly about the structure and the logic's of the future drawing.

The baby on the sketch is really cute so I guess it will be fun drawing him.
This sketch begins with a square so I created one. Two circles - a small one and a large one. Ear, face, and then the rest of it.

I decided not to fully shade it, just do the hair. I like it just the way it is.

I didn't try another one. It was hard enough for the first time. I'll get back to it.

Have a great day,
Dalia

Drawspace lesson H14: How to draw a child's face

Hi all.

We are moving on to Lesson H14 and it's going to be interesting. The idea of this lesson is to draw familiar objects upside down. To be exact, it's about drawing a child's face upside down.

As for me, the idea is lovely. You get to learn to look on familiar objects as if for the first time and get to train your eyes all over again. I actually added this exercise to my future "How to develop creativity" series that will begin soon.

But in the meantime let's concentrate on the given kid. This is the sketch in his upside down position, before I turned it back.

It was a very interesting experience. It was like drawing something for the first time. Like this was something I was unfamiliar with and got to know it for the first time.

And this is the final, shaded sketch.

I think it is a nice sketch. Obviously, it's not perfect, but it's not bad ether. I really hate the lips, they are way too large. But I do like how the hair came out and the eyes, although they look larger than they should be. The nose is under-shaded, but I'll leave it as is...

Have a great day,
Dalia

Drawspace lesson H13: How to draw people with straight lines?

Hi all,

Today I will be drawing people with straight lines. Lesson H13 suggests just that. The exercise is to do quick sketches in just several minutes. Preferably - no eraser. And the subject is a boy.

I've read this lesson several times feeling more and more intimidated. I really wanted to delay the doing of this lesson for later. And after going over the list of the whole H section and seeing the "Figure drawing basics" in the end of the list I said: "How is that possible?" And then I thought that maybe the idea is to make a first attempt ourselves before the actual explanation. After all, no matter how bad the sketch is, it allows the new artist to practice and come to conclusions by himself. Like someone said: First try yourself and then do a tutorial.

The challenge is to draw 5 sketches of humans every day for a month (the creation of a new habit).

So I took my HB pencil and started working. No erasers.
Here they are.

In the end I did only 4 sketches and to me - they all look more like Pinocchios. But as I drew, I managed to convince myself that these sketches are not to be accurate at all. The idea is to practice short and quick lines and develop my eye - hand connection.

After finishing these 4 sketches I decided to take a break form this lesson and move one to the next one. I really planned to continue and do 2 or three more sketches of the Pinocchio but I just couldn't help myself. Shame.

I'll have to get back to it later. This is one of this lessons.

Have a great day,
Dalia

365 sketches: 1 sketch per day

Hi all!

On my way to become a skilled and creative illustrator I don't only draw a lot but also read a lot of illustration/art related blogs. The problem that there is not so many I can really learn from. Most of them usually present an artist's works, which is nice, but they don't provide with practical knowledge for newbies like me. But I recently found this amazing blog of Natalie Ratkovski, a Russian illustrator and designer based in Germany. Her blog is dedicated to different subjects related to illustration and, to tell you the truth, at this moment her blog is the first thing I read when I open my computer.

In one of her posts she introduces her readers to the 356 sketch, a group on Flickr that urges people to draw every single day and share these drawings with a group. And you can draw absolutely anything.

I decided to adopt the idea. It is very different from what I do with Drawspace at the moment. If I join this project not only will I be drawing something small every single day, but also it might become some kind of instant sketchbook that might generate some ideas in the future.

When I thought of it I realized that it's being quite some time that I wanted to explore a new medium. At the moment I work with pencils, doing exercises with a very neat finish. And I'd really like a change. I thought a lot about the proper medium and came to the conclusion that it could either be a graphite pencil or a soft pencil, like 4B or softer. Also I thought that I want these to be really quick sketches, done in 10-15 minutes, short rough strokes, basic shading if at all, A5 scale. No helping tools like eraser or a ruler. For that matter I'll be using pencil leftovers, those you can hardly fit in your palm and sharp, when needed. I will keep on using a plain white printing paper and if I see that I need to switch to something different - I will. I'll be dating and posting all my sketches in the last day of the month. All of them. Or maybe twice a month so you don't feel overloaded :).

These are the tools I'll be using:
- pencils leftovers
- a handmade A5 notebook
- a clippad

I invite you all to join this experiment.

Have a great day,
Dalia

P.S. Funny thing happened. Previous Drawspace lesson talked just about that: quick sketches, short lines, no analyzing pure drawing.

Drawspace lesson H12: How to draw a long hair

Hi all,

Today we draw a long straight hair. I guess this is the easiest way to draw hair - to make it straight. Because I have no idea (yet, I believe) what it takes to draw a curly hair.

But let's get this Lesson (H12) started.

To draw a believable (any) hair one must use a wide variety of different pencils and have lots and lots of patience, because this one will surely take some time. With that said, let's now waste it and start drawing.
First there's an oval to draw and place a single point from which a hair grows.
Then the magic begins.

So there's the sketch. Since I didn't really like the outcome, I decided to do another sketch, but after comparing, I can see that the first sketch is way better.

It was interesting, and inspiring, and educational, and a really cool thing to draw.

Anyway, I decided to do a challenge and draw more of a straight hair. Here it is.

I loved this lesson; it was very nice to do it. Although, I've noticed that the final result is not always presented in the beginning of the lesson. I have to scroll down to see the final result to estimate the mapping of the sketch. Or maybe it's just a way to make a student read the lesson through.

I wish you all great day,
Dalia