Friday, December 10, 2010

Because I Needed to Talk to Someone and the Internet Was My Best Bet

Hermitty life. I swear, I'm a bit of a hermit. Ever since my holidays started I've been spamming myself with drawing. I don't go out much, maybe except to swim and take photos of random caterpillars eating my father's plants. O_o

My art life has become rather active lately. =) I'm almost filling up my sketchbook which I started drawing in 2008, and I've finally discovered the powerful tool that is...

REFERENCE IMAGES.

I was rather stupid last time when I used to draw because I never used reference (I don't know why, was it some foolish pride?) so I hate all my drawings from that time, they look rather spsastic at times haha.

I'm sorry, this IS going to be a ramble about my relationship with art.

Then I realised there's no shame in using reference (heck, almost everyone uses it) and I became addicted to reference images. I visit http://www.gettyimages.com/ for most of them... Deviantart has some pretty nice ones too.

I also recently purchased a book on drawing anatomy. It's wonderfully detailed and includes all muscle groups and the drawings are oh-so-pretty. I'm not sure if I want to go that much into detail just yet, I just want to make figures look convincing, y'know? And I'm staying true to this rule:

"The human body is NOT made up of straight lines!" (This is one rule I have broken quite a lot of times)

This guy breaks this rule all the time.
This is excruciating detail.

The guy writing the anatomy book, Peter M. Simpson, said that it's way better to draw figures from a skeleton than to use blocks and cylinders. That's cos with a skeleton you know where the muslces are attached to and so you can add appropriate bulk to your figures. It's not the same with cylinders because like I mentioned, the human body isn't made up of straight lines.

After I read that I thought, "Well there goes 5 years of drawing technique out the window." So basically I'm trying to make the transition to skeletons now, it's actually quite helpful though I can't for the life of me figure out where muscles go.

As I spend more time with my pencil and paper I realise that there is a lot about art which I can't do yet (Pretty backgrounds, foreshortening, beautiful colouring) and wow, it's overwhelming. I don't think I'll get that serious about art, but anyway I'll probably do it one step at a time. Well with the very small steps I'm taking I'll probably become decent in maybe in 15-20 years' time. XD

I've also met two entities which are the bane of my existence: hands, and couple sketches. Can't draw them to save my life. I end up laughing at myself. You know how Nelson laughs at Bart in the Simpsons? Yeah. I'm Nelson, then I'm Bart. : D
And drawings of couples? Immensely awkward for me to attempt. I end up giving them ridiculous expressions that look more comical than anything else. Just can't take them seriously. But since the best way to overcome your fears is to face them head-on, I'm spamming my sketchbook with a lot of hand dawings and the occasional couple bit (I still can't draw too many without laughing).

And the reason for wanting to draw couples? It's cos I'm a girl and I see stuff through a special mushy lens sometimes and cannot resist making cute little sketches of people being happy together in their own little world DAMNIT.

All in all, art is slowly becoming a more central part of my life, and I appreciate that very much. I don't know how far I want to go in terms of technical skill (like a professional illustrator, that's pretty far), but hopefully much further than now. Definitely

1 comment:

Amanda Last Name Pending said...

Dear Youlin
Basically; my sentiments exactly. I find my old drawings major HAHAHAHAHA HOLY FUCK WAS I LIKE 9 WHEN I DREW THESE. I have no idea how you guys praised it. But its cute I like looking at my old work and my current work and feel massive improvement. And then I feel artistic growth ahh could there be nothing better. Anyway I suppose what I've learnt it as an artists should always find ones own style and set goals only within the realm of that style. And you and I have very different styles :D But anyway I like talking to people who draw as well. Do you get tht thing where when you draw you follow the facial expression that your drawing? Everytime I catch myself doing that I go ahhh so this is what its like to get caught up in ones art. And anyway I can't draw lots of things; a position to complex and it looks stupid... cant draw hands.... cant draw anything serious. But thats cool cause lately I don't feel like drawing anything serious :D I must say though when it comes to drawing couples or cute mushy stuff I do quite well :D but only in a aw thats quite cute not in a awww thats so beautiful kinda way. Unfortunately my works highest point can only be aw man thats cute. But thats cool cause thats all I want. I like your drawings Koh Koh and btw that hand sketch on deviant was like top pro it doesnt really get much better then that.
OOHH BUT IM RAMBLING :D
How I do love to ramble
I'm sorry but you know how it is when someone talks about something they love. Linus always used to say that. HOLY CRAP I LOVE THE PANUTS COMIC <3