September Studies
This month I started following Paul Scott Canavan’s twitch stream. On Mondays and Fridays, the stream format is called “Study Buddies”. Everybody does two timed studies together and afterward we share them on Twitter under #StudyBuddies.
Doing studies is a really great way to learn and improve at art and doing them as a group has been really fun. I’m going to share each of mine here in one summary each month.
September 08: Horsey!
This was a 60 minute study of this prancing horse photo. I’ve never actually drawn a horse before. I’ve definitely tried and decided it was too hard though! So I counted this as a win for that alone.
What did I learn?
Horse knees are weird
I like some of my shapes, especially on the neck and around the rump. The short time limits are stopping me from over-blending everything.
I still need practice painting hair.
September 21: Ruins
We had 90 minutes to study this photo of old ruins. This was definitely a more complicated photo than I would have ever chosen to study by myself.
What did I learn?
Actually drawing it and getting the perspective right was hard enough! I really liked my line drawing and was afraid to start painting over it.
Keeping hard edges is still really hard for me. Defining the arches was difficult because of that.
I futzed around with too many different Photoshop brushes.
September 25: Figure
This was another 90 minute study, but I knew I didn’t have any hope of being able to draw and paint it. I decided to really try and nail the drawing instead. I was really happy with it though.
What did I learn?
Figure drawing has always been my favorite, but I’ve fallen really out of practice. This was a nice complex pose to work on. I was pretty happy with the face and the clothes.
Hands and feet are still too hard!
From here I’m going to start filling the background with a mid-tone from the start.
I came back to this one later and actually painted it.
Flat Colors
Basic Shading
Finished! With more shading and fabric patterns
September 28: Bust and Landscape
We had 60 minutes for this study of a bust sculpture. This was interesting practice because it had really cool lighting.
What did I learn?
I tried to challenge myself to measure by eye more. In previous studies I relied heavily on the Photoshop grid to place shapes. This time I tried to always place a shape by eye first and only go back to the grid to help refine it. Afterward I saw that a lot ended up in the wrong placecompared to the photo, but I still learned more about where to place things in relationship to eachother than I would have leaning on the grid.
I also didn’t really do a line-drawing for this one. I wanted to practice carving shapes out without over-blending or relying on the lines to define them. The nose and the mouth were especially hard to do for me.
This Monstad landscape study was done in 90 minutes. I really enjoyed learning about the colors.
What did I learn?
I was still working on measuring by eye, but I also challenged myself on colors more. I tried to place colors myself and only pick from the painting when I was having trouble figuring out what was going on. The different colors building up the foliage were fun to combine.
Defining shapes? Mine is very fuzzy compared to the original, but I was learning, I swear!
