Drawspace lesson M05: How to draw a Black Widow.

So... why would one want to draw a spider? No Idea. I did a Spider illustration once and I still love that one. So I'd love to say that it is to be a piece of cake for me, but I can't. Because with pencil drawing things can become a bit complicated. Because of all the details, of course. :)

What I loved about this lesson is that it's full of interesting information about these spiders. I mean, spiders are not my top interest, so I guess I would never sit and read about them. But here, as you go through the lesson, the given info seems very nice. 

Because of the detailed shading required I used an Acid free 180gr A5 paper. Since I am not really familiar with spiders' body structure and with having a smaller sheet of paper I had to open the lesson's file twice. One for the finished drawing and the correct proportion and the other for the stages of shading.

To keep the correct proportion I first created a square and placed the upper part of its body in the squares center 8.

The paper was very absorbing and I made it smudgy with my hand.

I decided to do another Black widow sketch on a 125 gr paper (ref image here).

And another (see ref image here)

The last one was the easiest to do since I was familiar a bit with the form. And I'm also pretty ok with how it looks like. 

New working habits: what habits did I develop last year?

It's been a year of creation and learning. One of the things acquired where some new habits - both in blogging, drawing and life in general.

Here they are:

1. Putting a tissue paper under the hand while shading to keep my hand and sketch - it's an obvious thing at the moment.
2. Putting finished sketches in a see-through folder before scanning/putting away in a Task Done folder.
3. Planning all my posts in advance. This way I have a dead-line schedule that keeps me going.  Just so you know, this post was finished and ready to be published one month before the actual publishing.
4. Write down ideas as they come.  If in front of the computer, do it immediately! Just grab a pen and a paper or send yourself an SMS with a description draft of it the moment it's there! I've heard and read it so many times before: "I had an idea; I just can't remember it now!!!" or "I have no ideas, what should I write about/do?" This is a 100% prescription for a Writers' Block. I won't say it doesn't happen to me. It does, but way less now. And, btw, at the moment I have about 80 draft posts waiting to be published.  
5. Working with a timer. Puts you in a great time frame, a real time saver.
6. Making a general daily TO DO list; a daily planner that helps me to not ask myself the question "What should I do today?" Everything goes on that list: blogging, drawing, household choirs etc.
7. Making ALL kinds of shopping lists, not only a grocery list. Like Shop in Ikea or Office Depot. This is something I started just recently and I find it VERY comfortable.
8. I'm using pencils of different grades now. Even more, I have so many different pencils at the moment that I had to switch from one small pencil box to another, bigger one.
9. Since I don't blind type, I tend to look at my keyboard, not my screen. The ideas to not get yourself busy with fixing all the spelling mistakes. You can deal with it after you finish your first draft. It's a real time saver.
10. Work with a 2H pencil for the first sketch. There's no other way now :).
11. Always read a lesson/a tutorial/a food recipe prior to doing the actual thing - draw/cook etc. Gives you a perspective on what you're about to do.
12. When placing several objects always use a helping line. This one is very helpful when the composition gets complicated.
13. Spell checking every post I published. Several times! Not in the same day!!! - I added this to the list after copy-pasting one of the post someplace else. I was shocked with the number of spelling mistakes I had in that post!!!! 

I'm sure there are many more, I could easily forgot some :)

And what about you? What are your new habits? How did you change your daily routine to make your life more comfortable and efficient?