Long time without posting any figure drawing. Feels good to keep doing them daily and it’s kind of funny to remember how that clock used to freak me out, I don’t even think about the time anymore.
I’ve been
doing drawing exercises daily for a while, but all this time I've been
wondering how could I incorporate the same kind of quick exercise in
watercolor, to maybe round one hour of warm-up everyday.
In late September I decided that trying portraits in the warmup would be a good complement to the figure drawings, so I added a 15 minute portrait in watercolor to the daily routine.
Being
completely honest I got mess after mess, they truly sucked, got discouraged and
stopped for a while, then got back to it this time taking one step at a time, first
in monochrome, trying to get right proportions, then trying to get some
resemblance to the model, then trying to speed up the process (yep, that clock is freaking me out again, it happens if you're a turtle when painting)
I still get
messes 90% of the time, tons of “aaaargh!” and “ewwww!” and “L” written next to them right after the 15 mins
are over, those will never see the light of day, but from time to time I manage
to get something that looks like an actual perfectly fine person.
Every time
I incorporate one more change it feels like the dreaded step back but I guess
it’s needed to get to the couple of steps forward, so I think I’ll keep at it
since I want to see that percentage change to at least 90% of successes.
Lesson
learned: if it’s too big of a piece to swallow, break it down into smaller bits
and chew chew chew.
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7 comments:
Dear Teresa,
These warm ups are so nice! Please be kind to yourself.
I choose exercise and medium, depends on my mood. Cartoon? Life drawing? Watercolour? What else? And if I can make "one" happy work, it's my day! Neither rigid nor tough on myself at all.
Today, my dear friend and very experienced picture book illustrator came to my place. We had a long chat over my dummy, her work's backstage stories etc. It has refreshed me and helped so much move on from my stuck. Teresa, have nice friends, especially, experienced mentor like artists near to you. Tonight, I'll work on drawings.
Best wishes & hugs, Sadami
Your figure work is gorgeous!! So well done - and I'm liking the portraits, too. But most of all, I admire your diligence and that you are working towards a goal and sticking to it :)
Thanks for the insight and advice Sadami, it's always good to be in good artsy company, isn't it?
Thanks Rhonda, diligence, that's something that I have to work at!
Love your figure work Teresa. You appear to get those contours with ease but know it is practice and skill.
Teresa you are an incredibly skilled draftswoman!! Your figure drawings are amazing, and you can see your drawing skills shine through in your quick watercolor portraits. I'm a little mind boggled that you accomplished SO much in 15 minutes! The proportions look perfect to me. :)
you have a great hand!! love your sketches, both with pencil and with w/c!
Thank you Mimi, I'm so glad you like these, I'm certainly enjoy doing them :)
Ah Crystal , if only you could see the bad ones lol, this very week I've done my worst watercolor EVER in one of these exercises O_O, there has to be a lesson somewhere in there hahaha! But then some of them turn out good and everything is worth it :)
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