Preparation for CalArts: Environment life drawing

So im trying to work on my environment life drawing skills and thought i'd kick off the progression with a long study to test my current skills. its really the first time ive actually gone out drawing still life objects, or at least of my own accord and not for a class, but they were both ages ago and terrible, so It should be the first of many. my initial thoughts are that it turned out a lot better than i was expecting, ive got a reasonable foundation to perspective but i really need to understand perspectives a little more before i can start exaggerating things. I'd also like to try a load of different techniques, medias and materials to draw on whilst i practice this. Hopefully then i can start feeling more confident with a vast range of processes.

head doodles

Some quick head doodles playing around with shapes, drew random shapes on the page and turned them into heads. Was a fun exercise to do after not doing any real character design for about 2 months.

Animal studies

So recently, as i have more time on my hands from the summer holidays, ive been slowly going through the animal kingdom drawing a different animal a night. Its been really fun as i’ve never really made the effort to draw animals. Just thinking ‘right, what animal have i never drawn before’ and then going ahead and drawing it has been so enjoyable! I hope to keep this up for as long as possible and maybe do a few digital paintings of my favourites, who knows...

Otters are by far one of my favourite animals!

GORR- RIL- AHH (tarzan reference for those without a childhood)

lots of elephants

Giraffes are hard to draw...

Needed another night dedicated to the Giraffe, wasnt happy with yesterdays work

 Everyone loves rhino's

Landscape painting virginity gone

In a desperate attempt to improve my use of colour, i thought i’d do a few landscape studies. I've never done landscape painting before and i've really enjoyed this, hopefully its the first of many!  All of these were done using photo reference, 30 - 50 minutes each.

Preparation for CalArts: Life drawing time trials

Still working on my life drawing skills, this time i thought i'd try to improve my quick gestures and use of colour.

First off i've noticed how long i've been spending on my life drawing up to late. I used to life draw quite quickly, making sure i got the entire gesture in within the first minutes, but ever since id been doing fairly detailed studies, i draw much slower. So i figured a series of 30 second to 5 min experiments would be fun.

Secondly, ive always known that my use of colour is beyond terrible! ive always been shy to use colour and have never just gone crazy with how i use colour. To introduce myself to colour i thought i'd do a load of life drawing using just coloured felt pens, and maybe if i felt up to it, throw some chalk in there.

It was really fun to do and i'll hopefully do a lot more.

 30 second gestural sketches using 6B graphite stick.

30 second gestural sketches using 6B graphite stick. 

30 second gestural sketches using 6B graphite stick.

1 min gestural sketches using felt pen.

1 min gestural sketches using felt pen.

30 second gestural sketches using felt pen.

30 second gestural sketches using felt pen.

5 min gestural sketches using felt pens.

5 min gestural sketches using chalk and charcoal.