Recent Figure Drawing

Random Assortment of Gestures.

Yes, I understand I misspelled "Bieber". :P

Trip to the Museum and a new Pen!

Two sketches at the coffee shop one afternoon. Second is a rare environment sketch. Just the view of a shop on the street outside.

This past weekend, I headed to the Royal Ontario Museum to sketch. Here are some of them.

I purchased a new brush pen and decided to try it out by doing gestures in a local Tim Horton's.

I'm attempting to get more expressive gestures but it's a bit tricky in places like the coffee shop. Most people just stand in line and play on their phones. ><

Neutral Face - First Draft

Original character's neutral face. When I re-draw cleaner and a bit more accurately, this will be the baseline face for all other facial expressions this character makes. (A portfolio requirement is your original character making several facial expressions from different angles.)

There are some flaws I will be correcting, such as the ears and how they aren't totally lined up.

Full body: First draft

This is the first draft of the character I designed for the school portfolio I'm working on. Eventually, she will be in a full character rotation


The arm bugs me. It feels too ridged.

Finally, a drawing update!

Two of the better pen sketches I've done lately.

My last two figure-drawing classes.

These are from a previous class. The earlier week was a male portrait  and the study of facial expressions. The teacher and the model posed for the facial expressions.

(I apologize for the blurriness of the top image.) 

The portraits above were the later week when we had a female model.

The top portrait is the more accurate of the two. (It is actually pretty dead on, give or take a few minor details.) The bottom one....something went wrong. I'm still trying to figure out what. (Besides the fact that the eyes sizes are bit off.) Her face seems too long. I did measure the length three or 4 times to make sure it was accurate (the width too).... If I had to bet on what it was throwing the whole thing off, it would be the nose. (I had some issues with it.)

This portrait class actually turned out to be a lot of fun. We were working with pastels. I am not a fan of pastels. They seem too dusty and there's something about the texture that I don't like.  (I will give them a bit more of a chance in future life-drawing. I'll experiment with different paper and see if I find a combination that works for me.)

Anyway, I was dreading this class because my pastel renders tend to turn out hideous. I also had to be crafty with the shading as I'm a cheap bastard and only had a few basic colors. :)  I grudgingly started working and had a very happy turn of events.

On a funny note. The model loved my shirt.

6/29/12 - Random sketchbook pages.

Another quick painting.

Life Drawing Dump

Above is a page of gestures we did to exercise control over the size. I tend to draw large when it comes to life drawing, so this was an interesting challenge.

The first row is 15, 15 second gestures. (I couldn't fit the full 15. I ended up drawing into the previous gesture a lot in an attempt to save space.)

The second row was 10, 1 minute gestures.

The third row was 5, 3 minute gestures. These turned great, in my opinion. (Except for the second from the left. It's stiff and I did not exaggerate the pose.)

Above is a 30 minute reclining pose. As Austin put it, certain parts of my anatomy are getting better while other parts are still behind. This leaves me with a sub par product. I know it sounds very negative to say things like that, but I like to focus on flaws first so I can learn what needs more work.

This was a 20 minute pose.


I forgot to post what I did in my last class. This classes focus was chiaroscuro.

We covered paper (in this case, Kraft Paper) with willow charcoal and used knead-able erasers to shade.The first image was a model under a sheet and then with the sheet removed. The second was a portrait. I was annoyed that it was a side view but there was no room anywhere else. ><

Slowly getting better.

I ventured back to the TSA today. It wasn't as crowded downtown since it's Sunday, making the walk there a little less annoying. Today it was a 3 hour long pose.

I let my partner borrow my worn conte nub and used the first drawing to wear my new piece down. This is the result.

I didn't bother with site measurement for the first and just used it as a warm up. I also did a few studies of the hands and feet to get a feel for them. After I was satisfied, I started my first actual attempt (using site measurement and all that good stuff).

I switched seats with my partner midway through to get a slightly different angle. I also switched to charcoal since I don't want limit myself by only using one technique/medium. I attempted to draw much smaller this time as I need to get used to that.

I was pleased by some of the images I produced, but I still need lots of practice.

The trip back on the GoTrain was.....annoying...to say the least. A sporting game had just let out and everyone squashed onto the train....Sardine Style. We were left standing in a squashed group with barely a few inches between each of us.

I was happy to get out of Toronto and back to a city with much more sidewalk space. Toronto is neat to visit sometimes, but I find it tiring after a few hours. I always come back exhausted and generally have a headache for hours afterwards.

Sketch Dump

None of these are edited so there are some bad and some good.

First visit to the Toronto School of Art

I headed to the Toronto School of Art  in order to attend their "drop-in" life drawing class. This one was a variety of timed poses. This was excellent practice for me. I was also happy to see that the model happened to be male. I can't draw males as well as I can draw females and need the practice.

I was a bit off my game due to being in a new environment, so I wasn't pleased with anything I produced. I picked the better of the bunch in order to have something to show.

10 minute poses:
This one below is probably the best out of the bunch. I spent a lot of time making him look like he was actually sitting and really studied the connection of the arm to the back. (That's a huge issue for my sketches around town. I tend to not measure the shoulder/arm connection properly and it looks wrong.)

It's still touch and go with feet and hands. I get how to draw a hand/foot when it's not doing anything, but I have trouble translating different positions of the hand/feet in my brain.
(The feet in the second image are TERRIBLE. )

25 minute poses:
This first one is just a study of what I didn't like about the first draft of the drawing.  I attempted to exaggerate the curve of the leg a bit more, etc.

 This is the first attempt. I am not happy with this one bit. I had trouble with the right arm as the negative space wasn't lining up properly. (His hand was actually placed much farther away from his leg.) I really should have scrapped it and started over. *nods*

The one below is not great. I like how the hand under his chin turned out but the feet are horrid and the placement of the hand resting on his leg is pretty off. 

All-in-all, the trip was interesting, albeit boring as I went alone. Given the amount of time and money I had to spend to get there, I wont be going again until I find employment and have an entire day to myself. I'm also going to look into places around the GTA, as I can just rent a car and drive as long as it's not in the city core. (I drove through downtown Toronto twice before and refuse to do it again.)

My only complaint about this place was the room was a bit small and there wasn't a lot of ventilation.  Otherwise, everything else was great. It was exactly what I wanted; something uninstructed where I could just go to practice. To people living in Toronto, you are very lucky. It's tough to find gatherings like this out in the Suburbs.


The next time I go, I'll definitely take a buddy. It's more fun during the breaks.