How Do Art?

[Oeufa]

Also, just in case there's any other beginners lurking about, I just stumbled across this page that has a scheisse-tonne of free e-books. There's so many with beginner exercises that I'll probably start digging into when I finish up this book. I might even run some simultaneously. Could be fun

 

[Oeufa]

Lesson 12 - building with cubes. The exercise was to draw a house, and the bonus was to draw a mailbox (wat is that I don't even). So here's my attempt, all in one drawing today - wahay!

Then I decided to try something fun and combine everyone's two favourite things - bad art and stupid retail stories.


click for bigger picture

Transcriptions of my terrible handwriting are available for a mere $5 surcharge

 

[Quinlan]

I have enjoyed your progress in this thread.

This helped me learn to draw immensely:

 

[Oeufa]

That picture is waaaaaaay too accurate to be considered parody of a lot of those how to draw books

 

[/DG/]

I've been enjoying this thread, so here's a little contribution.

How to draw a perfect circle:

 

[011235813]

Great blog! Subscribed.

 

[Oeufa]

And here's my bonus fan art of Shane Tyree doing the animation for Pat Rothfuss singing "I Crush Everything".

The actual video for this is out now, for anyone wondering wtf I was on about:

Also, anyone who is a fan of Patrick Rothfuss needs to get involved in this kickstarter before it ends (which is tomorrow iirc). It's just so awesome

 

[Oeufa]

Well aren't ye a bunch of lucky dawgs today? I gots another update for ye, because I love you all so much*

I wanted to try my hand at colouring something, so I dug out some colour pencils and tried drawing some vulpix pokémon and some fox cubs. Top is a traditional rendering of a vulpix. Bottom right is my attempt at stylizing a vulpix, and bottom left is my combination of a yawning fox cub and a vulpix.

So the colour turned out a bit disgusting - I think I should have gone over my lines first in pen, erased the pencil and THEN coloured in, because the grey HB pencil just smeared and smudged when I tried to colour. It doesn't help that the colours aren't very good pencils to begin with. Therefore I place this question before the arty people in the audience: which colour medium should I seriously try first, to learn the basics of colour and shade etc? Pencil, marker, watercolour, acrylic, oil (lol no), pastel, jam, eyeshadows, whathaveyous? Something reasonably forgiving, not amazingly expensive (so no photoshop suggestions plz) if possible


*Disclaimer: may just be because I got bored.

 

[Red Herring]

Have you ever tried watersoluble pencils? They aren't much more expensive than normal color pencils but can be diluted/smeared with a waterbrush.

Also great for bright colors, very efficient and comparatively affordable: watersoluble pastels

It really depends on whether you want to paint or draw, how bright you ant your colors to be and whether you prefer fine lines or rougher strokes and surfaces.

 

[Oeufa]

Many years ago my grandmother (who's very arty) gave me a set of watercolour pencils. I'd totally forgotten about those. Might try digging them out, though Cthulhu only knows where they are now..

Oooooooh so many questions. Honestly, no idea. I really like bold, bright comics, and very mellow-hued stylized stuff, and of course realistic paintings too. I don't know what I might like to do or what I might be good at (or rather, least sucky at). Perhaps I'll ask my grandmother to let me borrow some of her supplies so I can dick around with different types and see what appeals.

 

[/DG/]

OMFG Vulpix!!!

Will you be doing more Pokémon or other cool things?

The half vulpix, half yawning fox turned out a bit interesting though. lol

 

[Oeufa]

No more cool things. They're against my religion. Already there will be a penance to pay for the vulpix But yeah, any suggestions for stuff you guys would like to see me ruin, and I'll be happy to give it a go.

Though right now I'm thinking I should keep trying to perfect simple, basic drawings instead of sloppily doing more complex ones.

 

[gromit]

As for colored pencils, prismacolor pencils are really good. You can of course get higher-end colored pencils, but the prismacolor are still heads and shoulders above your basic crayola or store brand. They are a little more pricey, but the feel of the line is so much smoother, the colors lay down more evenly and richly on the paper. Good for shading and blending.

I think you can get a 12-count on amazon for like $10 or a 24-count for like $16. With blending, you probably don't need many more than 12 or 24 colors anyway.

One thing that's tricky about colored pencils is that you cannot paint over or draw over with a lighter color, and you can't really erase completely. So if you make a mistake and color something too darkly, you can use an eraser to lighten it up, but you can never get it back to pure white. I suppose you could go over it with white chalk, but you'd need to use a spray sealer so the chalk doesn't smudge/brush off.

This same property is true of watercolors and markers to an even greater extent. Acrylic and oil paints you could paint over with white or a light color. But, of all of these mediums, I'd say colored pencils have the easiest learning curve.

 

[gromit]

My art teacher in high school had us use cheap tempera/poster paint for learning color, if you wanted to try your hand at some painting. I'd recommend acrylic or tempera for beginning painting. Blending and shading is a lot more dynamic in these mediums than in colored pencil, because you can actually move two slightly different shades/hues around on the paper before the paint dries to create a gradient.

You just have to be patient if you are painting over something a different color.

 

[Oeufa]

Cool, I might try and pick up some nice pencils later so before I get stuck into something messy like paint. Thanks for the tip

 

[Oeufa]

Ok well I went round a few art supply stores today - HUGE mistake. There were so many things! They had LOADS of beginner sets for all sorts - sketching, acrylics, oils, gouache, watercolours, loads of different types of pastels, even crayons! I was so so so tempted to buy a couple of those sets, but that would have amounted to about €60 and I managed to talk myself down from the art supply ledge before I lept into debt

However I did get a larger sketch pad, a nice colouring pencil set (just normal pencils, not any of the fancy watersoluble ones or the ink ones or the pastel ones or the.... ) and a set of chalky pastels because those looked fun.

Wish me luck!

EDIT: And they had mini canvasses! Like 1.5" squares! I wanted to buy all of them

 

[Oeufa]

So I looked at lesson 13 and it was more damn houses, which I really wasn't in the mood for drawing, so I decided to leave it for today. Tried doodling a bit with my new pencils. I have no idea what I'm doing. It's pretty disheartening

 

[Oeufa]

So we're playing catch up now Here's lesson 13, which was "More Advanced Houses". I'm getting a bit sick of houses. The bonus was to trace a bunch of houses he drew. I skipped that. Fuck tracing.

And here's lesson 14, which was a lily (awww). Somewhat more interesting. The lesson was to draw a lily, then the bonus was to try combining the lily with the stylized rose from a few lessons back. Then draw more lilies.

I'll see about getting Lesson 15 done later. I wanna try messing around with the pastels a bit as well. I dunno. I'm getting demotivated by looking at deviantart, and the dawning realisation of just how LONG it will take to attain my goal of Not Shit

 

[Oeufa]

And here is my attempt at dicking around with pastels. My initial impression is that they would probably work better for me as backgrounds, which I'd then seal somehow and draw/paint on top with something else. Though I've seen some gorgeous stuff on deviantart done entirely in chalk pastel (like a very realistic tiger, for example).

 

[Viridian]

I've been enjoying this thread, so here's a little contribution.

How to draw a perfect circle:

That is an uncannily accurate depiction of me watching artists' livestreams.