Thanks for watching! What are your biggest obstacles to getting started drawing at home, in your sketchbook? Let me know below, and hopefully this video will help you to kick start your drawing practice :)
I think my biggest obstacle is my own hatred of failure. It's so tiring to constantly end up with an ugly picture regardless of the labor input. So failure after failure, I just get so tired of drawing.
@@restlesssheep7156 i know how that feels!!... it's all very well to say, focus on the process rather than the outcome... it might be more helpful to re-evaluate what you think "makes a good drawing"; if you could, it might effect a subtle shift in that understanding, and that could ultimately lead to seeing a way into your own work for yourself. A good drawing is subjective, but you might be able to recognize the labour or the observation in your drawing as being the hallmarks of a good drawing rather than simply looking at whether it's a good representation and therefore either a failure or a success. (and for me, observation doesn't have to mean that the drawing "looks like" the subject....)
Me lol. I am my biggest obstacle. I am a high school studio art teacher and I came to your channel to try to reconnect with drawing and develop a daily habit of doing it. Great channel by the way, you are a good teacher.
@@christopherwelch7042 Hi Christopher! Aren't we all our biggest obstacle?! ... I can relate to that for sure. I do think that we sometimes put too much pressure on ourselves to be drawing every single day. Observing and looking is also drawing!! :) (at least that's what i tell myself in those moments haha). Thanks so much for watching and supporting this channel, that means a lot from an art teacher like yourself.
Thank you for sharing your tips. Usually I cannot start painting if my studio is messy, but I found out that I do not need entire studio to start. I produced small, but really charming painting that day at my breakfast table. Your drawing skill is amazing, by the way! I recently joined your channel but this is my first time leaving comment. I will be fully supporting your channel! Learned to sketch gestures today! 🙂👍
No question! Beautifully done! I love how dynamic and energetic they are! Some insight into elementary drawing essentials like measuring and gauging perspective would be wonderful!
It's a very beautiful and wonderful art! I think your work is very special and wonderful. I learned a lot about the technique. I love your video. Thank you for seeing such a wonderful work. I respect and support you.
I really love this kind of drawings the most, with this compressed charcoal, these are amazing! Love your style and art, thank you. I will try this for sure. What I also liked and found very useful was to see you when you draw! I hope the screen on screen parts would be longer. I mean you really look at the reference and draw at the same time! I would like to see more of that and maybe you could tell/teach more about how to look at the reference and how to combine it with drawing? I hope you will continue to make these videos?
This is a really helpful and interesting comment! Thanks for this feedback, this is something I wouldn't have thought too much about, as a video topic, so I really appreciate it. I'll definitely try to do more of this and will try to do a video this week about it, great topic to talk about. I often can't show the reference image because of copyright issues on youtube and guidelines around images of the model etc, but I can definitely incorporate how to look at a reference image while drawing, it is as you say a really a key aspect to this approach. Thanks for this! In the meantime... a quick answer here is that I TRY to look at the model about 80% and at the page 20% ... that seems like a lot but essentially this approach to figure drawing is based on observation rather than design. So it's all about keeping visual contact with your reference and drawing in response to what you observe. If you need a really good exercise on this then try "blind contour drawing" ... I have a video about what is contour drawing and it explains how you look more at the model than at your drawing. I'll try to make a video about this this week though ! :)
@@Drawing-Life Thanks for your answer, and would be amazing if you will make a video about looking 🙏. I will rewatch the blind drawing video, I think I saw it earlier.
Great video! I tend to be quite stiff and technical with my drawings, wanting everything to be perfect. I'll be trying out your drawing exercises to help me loosen up and draw more freely 😊
Hi Siobhan. I enjoyed this video very much. It got me thinking. Your warm up drawings are much more than something to discard, at least in my opinion. You mention not looking back on them because you might think they are terrible. Of course I understand the context of why you said that. Now maybe it’s because I am just beginning my journey into figure drawing but I find your warm ups to be really special, almost poetic and I think it’s because of how you create them. Clearly, you are employing the right side of your brain with no interference from the left. As a result, these drawings are purely expressive and a direct conduit from your creative imagination to the page and on to the viewer. You’ve been doing this a long time now and I wonder if you have lost some perspective as to the value of your own work? These “throwaways” could be hung in a gallery and would have quite a bit of merit, I think (except for the non-archival newsprint :) And I’m not just picking on you, lol, I think it’s an interesting question for any artist. Sometimes I feel like we lose the innocence of our initial explorations in art (the very thing that makes us unique) when we gain expertise and skills. This can create a filter through which we see all our future and past work, essentially editing and/or censoring our ideas. Is it possible that the art we produce with the least amount of thought is superior to the work we pain over? After all, the loud voice of our inner critic always demands perfection.
Hi Steven, wow what an interesting comment and insight! Thank you for this, this gives me a lot of food for thought!! I really appreciate your comments about the value of the "throw away" drawings; and of course I do agree - i personally feel that these drawings are so much more powerful and impactful than many of the longer, finished or more worked over drawings. I guess I try to encourage beginners to view them as throw away so that they don't try to perfect them. So yes, I definitely agree with you that something is lost as we gain expertise and skill. In fact many artists want to regain that initial beginner mind (notably a master like Picasso). So I often see before and after pictures that people post showing their work as a beginner compared to how they draw now, and to be honest nearly every time I find that the beginner drawing is way "better" than the drawing where technique is perfected. The beginner drawing has a commitment to observation that the later drawing really lacks, in most cases. Ultimately the goal is to harness the expressive gesture and combine it with more finished approach. Great comment here, I may make a video about this discussing it further! Thank you so much :)
@@Drawing-Life Thanks for the considered reply. I also think it would be an interesting topic for one of your videos. By the way, I just started your Udemy “Draw Dynamic Figures” course.
Do you recommend to choose the pose I sketch or just draw whatever pose I see ??? Because I struggle with difficult poses and try to avoid them . .. thank you for your helpful videos 😊
@raidw that’s a great question! Truthfully we should aim to draw the poses we find challenging,because that’s no doubt where we’ll find the most growth .... but, having said that I often skip through poses until I find one I like!! So, I guess my advice is at least try to draw whatever pose you see, but don’t sweat it too much, and move to the next one if it’s uninspiring!
Hi Siobhan. Thank you for another great, informative video! Recently had to have some hand surgery on my “drawing” hand so took a break from my drawing routine. Your work on this video is wonderful, so expressive! Like how you use the side of the charcoal stick for darker areas and the tip of it for more defining line work. I will give it a try. About how long do you spend on each drawing during this warm up time? When finished with all the warm up drawings do you then launch into doing a longer, more detailed pose? You seem to squint a lot when looking at your reference, do you find that this helps you? Also, I noticed at the end of your video a loose painting (oil maybe) displayed next to your dog. Is painting something you are experimenting with or do as well now? Sorry, I have lots of questions!
Hi Rolf! Oh wow sorry to hear that you had to have surgery ... although i sincerely hope that this surgery is something that will improve or resolve any issues you have with your hand! Do you ever draw with your non-drawing hand? I'm right-handed and often switch to my left hand to draw if I feel that I'm not drawing faithfully... drawing with my left hand helps me to switch off what I think i need to draw and often i get more accurate results - i certainly have less control and that also helps! Thanks for watching this and your questions: I think each one took a few minutes - no more than 4 or 5; and yes, after these loose studies, I draw a more focused longer drawing. About squinting! haha yes I do that to try to "flatten" out the reference image - it helps to make the image have less contrast and details so I just see the overall shapes - you can also close one eye to do this. The painting in my studio is a work in progress... although it has been in this state for about a year now!! painting is a much slower process - I haven't done much painting in the last 12 months, I hope to get back to it again this year :) thanks for watching and being here, I hope your hand recovers very quickly!! Take good care, talk soon.
Thanks for your reply. Yep, hand all good now and back at it. Will have to try drawing with my non drawing hand as you suggest, curious as to what the results might be! Thanks again!
Could this be done on a graphics tablet in, for example, Photoshop? What would the brush(?) settings be to match what you are doing with the charcoal pencil.
Sorry for the long overdue reply here. Yes, basically I think gesture drawing can be done with a graphics tablet, you can easily draw loosely and expressively in that medium. But to effect the look of charcoal, I think it's easier to use a texured brush or a brush that has the look of charcoal , rather than try and approximate the look in the settings of a regular brush. You could google "charcoal brush pack" for photoshop and I'm sure there are plenty available to download. Can't say that I know of a specific one to recommend.I just suggest that you test out different ones and see if you can get one that looks, and draws like charcoal
@DYoung there is a link to the image I'm drawing from in the description. Unfortunately the photo reference is not my content, so for copyright issues I don't publish it on my videos. I appreciate the feedback though, it would be great to share - hope to get a work around soon.
"Exaggerate the pose". I do that alot when it comes to the back and leg lines. I love long sweeping curves. I love your style. Thanks for help. The breasts are hard for me.
I love the How to videos! Can I have a version of models but censored? I know it is a part of art I just can't look at naked people while I am drawing it doe's not sound right to me I'm sorry. Not to be rude or anything I really can't find a censored version!
Hi Michael! Thanks for your feedback - totally understand that! I would suggest that you work with the clothed figure for drawing practice .... on the New Masters Academy TH-cam page if you go to their play lists section, there is one playlist of clothed figures for drawing, so it's the exact same kind of poses, but not nude. This is also an option on another popular figure drawing reference site called Croquis Cafe. I'm planning a video next week on "how I choose reference images" and I'll make a note to include information about those options. Hope this is helpful!
😩 ... I can relate to that!! Try blind drawing! Or better yet... warm up by drawing 1 min poses with the hand you don't normally draw with (left, if you're right handed, or draw with your right, if you're left handed!); that'll clear those perfect lines right up!
it would have been very nice an helpful if we could see the picture/model you were drawing instead of you on top right rectangle :), and this suggestion is for almost every video of your
Thank you so much for watching! I really appreciate it. Thanks for your feedback also. To answer your question, I always post the link to the exact pose in the description and encourage you to check it out. The reason I don't use the image in my videos is because, for the most part, i'm drawing from models posted on another TH-cam channel so the image is not mine to use. I don't have the channel or the models permission. I also don't draw for an exact likeness of the photo, and having a photo to compare is only going to lead to checking if the drawing looks like the photo instead of the process of responding to the pose and drawing with gesture. I hope this makes sense! Thank again for watching @@UCnZgfkx3BI8yjUM7AQiRtFg
Thanks for watching! What are your biggest obstacles to getting started drawing at home, in your sketchbook? Let me know below, and hopefully this video will help you to kick start your drawing practice :)
I think my biggest obstacle is my own hatred of failure. It's so tiring to constantly end up with an ugly picture regardless of the labor input. So failure after failure, I just get so tired of drawing.
@@restlesssheep7156 i know how that feels!!... it's all very well to say, focus on the process rather than the outcome... it might be more helpful to re-evaluate what you think "makes a good drawing"; if you could, it might effect a subtle shift in that understanding, and that could ultimately lead to seeing a way into your own work for yourself. A good drawing is subjective, but you might be able to recognize the labour or the observation in your drawing as being the hallmarks of a good drawing rather than simply looking at whether it's a good representation and therefore either a failure or a success. (and for me, observation doesn't have to mean that the drawing "looks like" the subject....)
@@Drawing-Life Thanks for your advice. It just gets really discouraging sometimes.
Me lol. I am my biggest obstacle. I am a high school studio art teacher and I came to your channel to try to reconnect with drawing and develop a daily habit of doing it. Great channel by the way, you are a good teacher.
@@christopherwelch7042 Hi Christopher! Aren't we all our biggest obstacle?! ... I can relate to that for sure. I do think that we sometimes put too much pressure on ourselves to be drawing every single day. Observing and looking is also drawing!! :) (at least that's what i tell myself in those moments haha). Thanks so much for watching and supporting this channel, that means a lot from an art teacher like yourself.
Useful - yes. Helpful - yes. Loose and messy - the only way I know how to draw. Thanks so much! Excellent tutorial.
Haha! great to hear that! Thank you for watching Rich :)
U deserve more suscribers. Ur work is AMAZING!!!!!❤❤
Ah thank you, that’s very kind of you to say! Thanks so much for watching! 😁
Thank you for sharing your tips. Usually I cannot start painting if my studio is messy, but I found out that I do not need entire studio to start. I produced small, but really charming painting that day at my breakfast table. Your drawing skill is amazing, by the way! I recently joined your channel but this is my first time leaving comment. I will be fully supporting your channel! Learned to sketch gestures today! 🙂👍
This should help encourage me to loosen up and do more gesture drawing. Thank you so much.
I hope so, let me know?? Thanks for watching, I appreciate it
No question! Beautifully done! I love how dynamic and energetic they are! Some insight into elementary drawing essentials like measuring and gauging perspective would be wonderful!
Thank you so much 😀 so great get this response! I appreciate it.
Amazing 😊😊
I really like your video!!!! Inspired me a lot
@plmmJIA thank you so much! :) so happy to hear that!
It's a very beautiful and wonderful art! I think your work is very special and wonderful. I learned a lot about the technique. I love your video. Thank you for seeing such a wonderful work. I respect and support you.
Wow, thank you so much! That means a lot to receive from you, I love your channel, I'm very inspired by your portraits. Thank you so much! 🙏 ☺️
I really love this kind of drawings the most, with this compressed charcoal, these are amazing! Love your style and art, thank you. I will try this for sure.
What I also liked and found very useful was to see you when you draw! I hope the screen on screen parts would be longer. I mean you really look at the reference and draw at the same time! I would like to see more of that and maybe you could tell/teach more about how to look at the reference and how to combine it with drawing?
I hope you will continue to make these videos?
This is a really helpful and interesting comment! Thanks for this feedback, this is something I wouldn't have thought too much about, as a video topic, so I really appreciate it. I'll definitely try to do more of this and will try to do a video this week about it, great topic to talk about. I often can't show the reference image because of copyright issues on youtube and guidelines around images of the model etc, but I can definitely incorporate how to look at a reference image while drawing, it is as you say a really a key aspect to this approach. Thanks for this! In the meantime... a quick answer here is that I TRY to look at the model about 80% and at the page 20% ... that seems like a lot but essentially this approach to figure drawing is based on observation rather than design. So it's all about keeping visual contact with your reference and drawing in response to what you observe. If you need a really good exercise on this then try "blind contour drawing" ... I have a video about what is contour drawing and it explains how you look more at the model than at your drawing. I'll try to make a video about this this week though ! :)
@@Drawing-Life Thanks for your answer, and would be amazing if you will make a video about looking 🙏. I will rewatch the blind drawing video, I think I saw it earlier.
+
Excellent
Keep up the good work
I find your techniques and tips helpful
Thank you
Thank you ! :)
Thank you so much for your tutorials! So helpful and encouraging - I do learn a lot from you! And your drawings are amazing!
I'm really glad to hear that, thanks for watching - hope it helps your work, but let me know if you have any questions! :)
Great video! I tend to be quite stiff and technical with my drawings, wanting everything to be perfect. I'll be trying out your drawing exercises to help me loosen up and draw more freely 😊
@funkyC Great! Let me know if you see any change in your drawing! Would love to hear how you get on.
Awesome video 🍀
Excellent, very helpful like always.
Thank you! :)
I love your videos thank you so much
Thank you Renee, that means a lot I really appreciate it :)
Hi Siobhan. I enjoyed this video very much. It got me thinking. Your warm up drawings are much more than something to discard, at least in my opinion. You mention not looking back on them because you might think they are terrible. Of course I understand the context of why you said that. Now maybe it’s because I am just beginning my journey into figure drawing but I find your warm ups to be really special, almost poetic and I think it’s because of how you create them. Clearly, you are employing the right side of your brain with no interference from the left. As a result, these drawings are purely expressive and a direct conduit from your creative imagination to the page and on to the viewer. You’ve been doing this a long time now and I wonder if you have lost some perspective as to the value of your own work? These “throwaways” could be hung in a gallery and would have quite a bit of merit, I think (except for the non-archival newsprint :) And I’m not just picking on you, lol, I think it’s an interesting question for any artist. Sometimes I feel like we lose the innocence of our initial explorations in art (the very thing that makes us unique) when we gain expertise and skills. This can create a filter through which we see all our future and past work, essentially editing and/or censoring our ideas. Is it possible that the art we produce with the least amount of thought is superior to the work we pain over? After all, the loud voice of our inner critic always demands perfection.
Hi Steven, wow what an interesting comment and insight! Thank you for this, this gives me a lot of food for thought!! I really appreciate your comments about the value of the "throw away" drawings; and of course I do agree - i personally feel that these drawings are so much more powerful and impactful than many of the longer, finished or more worked over drawings. I guess I try to encourage beginners to view them as throw away so that they don't try to perfect them. So yes, I definitely agree with you that something is lost as we gain expertise and skill. In fact many artists want to regain that initial beginner mind (notably a master like Picasso). So I often see before and after pictures that people post showing their work as a beginner compared to how they draw now, and to be honest nearly every time I find that the beginner drawing is way "better" than the drawing where technique is perfected. The beginner drawing has a commitment to observation that the later drawing really lacks, in most cases. Ultimately the goal is to harness the expressive gesture and combine it with more finished approach. Great comment here, I may make a video about this discussing it further! Thank you so much :)
@@Drawing-Life Thanks for the considered reply. I also think it would be an interesting topic for one of your videos. By the way, I just started your Udemy “Draw Dynamic Figures” course.
awesome thanks :)
@kappabarkin thank you for watching :)
Do you recommend to choose the pose I sketch or just draw whatever pose I see ??? Because I struggle with difficult poses and try to avoid them . .. thank you for your helpful videos 😊
@raidw that’s a great question! Truthfully we should aim to draw the poses we find challenging,because that’s no doubt where we’ll find the most growth .... but, having said that I often skip through poses until I find one I like!! So, I guess my advice is at least try to draw whatever pose you see, but don’t sweat it too much, and move to the next one if it’s uninspiring!
@@Drawing-Life thank you so much 😊🙏🏻
Hi Siobhan. Thank you for another great, informative video! Recently had to have some hand surgery on my “drawing” hand so took a break from my drawing routine. Your work on this video is wonderful, so expressive! Like how you use the side of the charcoal stick for darker areas and the tip of it for more defining line work. I will give it a try. About how long do you spend on each drawing during this warm up time? When finished with all the warm up drawings do you then launch into doing a longer, more detailed pose? You seem to squint a lot when looking at your reference, do you find that this helps you? Also, I noticed at the end of your video a loose painting (oil maybe) displayed next to your dog. Is painting something you are experimenting with or do as well now? Sorry, I have lots of questions!
Hi Rolf! Oh wow sorry to hear that you had to have surgery ... although i sincerely hope that this surgery is something that will improve or resolve any issues you have with your hand! Do you ever draw with your non-drawing hand? I'm right-handed and often switch to my left hand to draw if I feel that I'm not drawing faithfully... drawing with my left hand helps me to switch off what I think i need to draw and often i get more accurate results - i certainly have less control and that also helps! Thanks for watching this and your questions: I think each one took a few minutes - no more than 4 or 5; and yes, after these loose studies, I draw a more focused longer drawing. About squinting! haha yes I do that to try to "flatten" out the reference image - it helps to make the image have less contrast and details so I just see the overall shapes - you can also close one eye to do this. The painting in my studio is a work in progress... although it has been in this state for about a year now!! painting is a much slower process - I haven't done much painting in the last 12 months, I hope to get back to it again this year :) thanks for watching and being here, I hope your hand recovers very quickly!! Take good care, talk soon.
Thanks for your reply. Yep, hand all good now and back at it. Will have to try drawing with my non drawing hand as you suggest, curious as to what the results might be! Thanks again!
Could this be done on a graphics tablet in, for example, Photoshop? What would the brush(?) settings be to match what you are doing with the charcoal pencil.
Sorry for the long overdue reply here. Yes, basically I think gesture drawing can be done with a graphics tablet, you can easily draw loosely and expressively in that medium. But to effect the look of charcoal, I think it's easier to use a texured brush or a brush that has the look of charcoal , rather than try and approximate the look in the settings of a regular brush. You could google "charcoal brush pack" for photoshop and I'm sure there are plenty available to download. Can't say that I know of a specific one to recommend.I just suggest that you test out different ones and see if you can get one that looks, and draws like charcoal
^^ great video ♡ ty
Thank you for watching!
It would be great if we could also see the reference picture.
@DYoung there is a link to the image I'm drawing from in the description. Unfortunately the photo reference is not my content, so for copyright issues I don't publish it on my videos. I appreciate the feedback though, it would be great to share - hope to get a work around soon.
@@Drawing-Life I love your channel by the way. It’s been such a huge help to my art. Thank you.
Your'e awesome!!
Thank you for watching! :)
👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻
Thank you @dailydrawing!
"Exaggerate the pose". I do that alot when it comes to the back and leg lines. I love long sweeping curves. I love your style. Thanks for help. The breasts are hard for me.
I love the How to videos! Can I have a version of models but censored? I know it is a part of art I just can't look at naked people while I am drawing it doe's not sound right to me I'm sorry. Not to be rude or anything I really can't find a censored version!
Hi Michael! Thanks for your feedback - totally understand that! I would suggest that you work with the clothed figure for drawing practice .... on the New Masters Academy TH-cam page if you go to their play lists section, there is one playlist of clothed figures for drawing, so it's the exact same kind of poses, but not nude. This is also an option on another popular figure drawing reference site called Croquis Cafe. I'm planning a video next week on "how I choose reference images" and I'll make a note to include information about those options. Hope this is helpful!
I start off drawing, determined to draw loosely and I end up drawing rigid perfect lines.
😩 ... I can relate to that!! Try blind drawing! Or better yet... warm up by drawing 1 min poses with the hand you don't normally draw with (left, if you're right handed, or draw with your right, if you're left handed!); that'll clear those perfect lines right up!
What a great idea, I am also too detail oriented, will try that for sure.
it would have been very nice an helpful if we could see the picture/model you were drawing instead of you on top right rectangle :), and this suggestion is for almost every video of your
Thank you so much for watching! I really appreciate it. Thanks for your feedback also. To answer your question, I always post the link to the exact pose in the description and encourage you to check it out. The reason I don't use the image in my videos is because, for the most part, i'm drawing from models posted on another TH-cam channel so the image is not mine to use. I don't have the channel or the models permission. I also don't draw for an exact likeness of the photo, and having a photo to compare is only going to lead to checking if the drawing looks like the photo instead of the process of responding to the pose and drawing with gesture. I hope this makes sense! Thank again for watching @@UCnZgfkx3BI8yjUM7AQiRtFg