Live Drawing Part 2

At the weekend I went for a coffee with one of my friends and while I was there I took the opportunity to do some more live drawing. I had less time than I did with the first live drawing so I just concentrated on some of the more interesting shapes I seen in people. This was mainly because I was at the Starbucks window where people fly past so I had about 3-5 seconds of sight of each individual. I'm really enjoying this and slowly but surely getting more confident, I especially like to draw tall skinny people and angular people, those shapes interest me more than circles. 

For my next live drawing I want to go down to either Waterstones or the Union so I can look down onto the people below and hopefully get some really interesting drawings and shapes.  

Crombie Country Park

Today me and my friend Karolina went to Crombie Country Park just outside Dundee. The sun was amazing today and it created some lovely shadows and small pockets of light would come through the trees. I managed to take lots of photos and I plan on doing some studies of them, particular some of the interesting lighting and some of the tree bark. Me and Karolina plan on going to other places too, so next time I shall not only take lots of reference photos but do some sketching too. 

Also the photo layout for blogger is terrible and has been driving me mad all day so please excuse the layout of the photos.  

Live Drawing Evaluation

For this weeks practical we were to spend just under two hours 'people watching'. This is where you sit in a public space and watch people, making mental notes of how they walk, their character, their posture etc and drawing them. We were to draw them using quick fluid lines, not focusing on detail, just trying to create the sense of character and capturing a personality. 

The first two pages I did were a bit rusty and I feel like I should of used up a page of just drawing circles and smooth motions to warm up first but for next time I will remember. I tried to keep my lines as quick and fluid as possible as well as trying to create the motion and character of the people walking past. 

There were a few things I noticed of the people I was drawing, and that was that most of them were quite elderly. Mostly because it was 9am on a thursday so most people would be at work, but there were a few young people too, mostly elderly though. After noting this I tried to create a tired, hunched and leaning to one side that many people did while carrying their shopping. I feel like I've succeeded on some parts but I was aware that I didn't want pages of just on type of person so after a few sketches I moved onto some of the more younger people that I seen. 

Overall, I believed I did well and I really enjoyed this so I will most definitely do this again in the near future. Mental notes for next time is that I should do a warm up page to get my hand and arm warmed up before I start doodling as well as trying to build up my skills of drawing more simple quick fluid lines to create characters.   

Tone and Shade Evaluation

At week 2 for our practical was the study of tone and shade. We sat at out tables with different objects which we had to draw, using as few lines as possible. Mine was a crinkled piece of black card which I found difficult to create the soft creases and for the first half hour or so it looked more like a chicken leg than anything else which obviously dampened my confidence while drawing. Throughout that though, I was thinking to myself "Just keep working on it!" and eventually it stopped being a chicken leg and started to look more like card. I used several drawing techniques such as drawing in shade with diagonal lines and in circles; I didn't smudge. Black card was hard to get across as I used white as the highlights when they should be more of an off white or light grey to get across that the card is black.  There are some mistakes I've made when drawing this such as I've foreshortened it too much, it should be a bit wider especially towards the bottom (right). There also should be an opening where on one of the dents on the left where the card lifts up a bit, showing some light from behind. Some minor mistakes which could easily be fixed. Overall, I believe that this was a good effort of tone and shade from still life and I intend to try it again with something similar in the near future. I will also incorporate what I've learned here into my digital drawings to help expand and improve my drawing abilities. 

Perspective Evaluation

Here is a perspective drawing I did for my first practical in Computer Arts Practice. We were told to go off and to try create a sense of depth within out perspective drawings. Unfortunately I didn't get very long to draw mine as Bar One were changing the tables/redecorating so I was made to leave, I did take a picture before I left though. 

The main reason I choose to draw this scene was the lines of the window against the neighbouring building and how they almost clashed with the lines of the tables and chairs. I thought it made a good contrast and would be fun to draw.

When looking back at my drawing and comparing it to the photo, there are some obvious mistakes that I made apart from not being able to finish it. The blue lines of the window panes don't match to the one in the photo and the green lines of the building are in the third window almost reaching into the fourth while in the photo its in the second window reading into the third.
These little mistakes have altered the perspective in my drawing as the outside building looks taller making it look like I'm drawing on a lower floor than what I actually am. This will automatically make anything I draw relating to the road out of perspective and I did have a lot of trouble trying to draw the vanishing point of the road to the point where I just gave up.
There was also something I noticed with the perspective of the tables that some of their vanishing points were very close to the one of the road. I could of used this to help guide me into making the correct vanishing point for the road.


I'm hoping to go back to try and draw this scene again at some point and spend a lot more time on it so I can finish and perfect it as well as using the 'props' of tables and chair to help guide me to the vanishing point. I'm also going to try and lighten my lines for the outside building to try and create the sense of depth that I was looking for.

Overall, I don't think its a bad first try but as always, there's plenty of room for improvement!