ST NEOTS LIFEDRAWING

Sunday, 23 April 2017

I just wanted to make a post of some useful apps that you can download on your phone or tablet that can aid the drawing process

I recenty came across a great app by character deigner and cartoonist Stephen Silver.

if you search for Posebook 3d on your appstore.

it should look like something like this

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.JohnnyByrnes.PoseBook3DBySilver&hl=en_GB

Its a great app to help you study the basic structure of the head. He also has tutorials on the app to how to use it

And regarding anatomy. A hugely helpful app is 3D Anatomy for the Artist. Great if you want to brush up on your anatomy knowledge. Personally i don't think you need to know what every muscle is to be good at life drawing and figure drawing but its good to have a basic idea of the anatomy.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.catfishanimationstudio.AnatomyForTheArtistLite&hl=en_GB

Saturday, 7 January 2017

i find that using a tablet can be of great help when it comes to studying and drawing off photo references of models. An alternative would be using tracing paper over a printed image. But a tablet can be more convenient and you can use it on your travels.

I use an app called Art Flow on a Samsung galaxy tab. Its a free app but you can upgrade if you want to at a small cost.

I use it to bring in pictures of models and then draw on top or alongside to breakdown the gesture and structure of a figure. Trying to work out a particular set of problems that i can use to help me when drawing on paper. I also use it to study works of old masters that i saved from the internet and also to draw these ideas from memory. Think of using a tab as a digital sketchbook.

Here is some images i saved from my tablet using artflow. Model Reference images are from New Masters Academy. You can get an idea of the type of practice that is good to do daily. Even if its just 5 minutes a day. One day you may study head construction another day you may decide to study anatomy of the upper Arm or the hand. I find that slowly the information gets ingrained to memory and then that can be drawn upon in a life drawing class.

figure studies

master study of Steve Husons work


doing quick master studies.

leg and knee studies

torso studies

torso gestures

studies of individual body parts

arm anatomy studies

ways of breaking down the figure

anatomy over the figure

anatomy over master works

master composition studies

random page of studies

torso..arms up studies

Add caption


master color studies	color studies


hand and finger studies

more notes

hands

individual feature studies

heads torsos

legs feet

Happy new year!

im going to try to keep this blog updated in 2017!

Anyway here are the drawings from November Class 2016. Some great drawings.

Saturday, 10 September 2016

I wanted to take this opportunity to post 2 pictures showing the difference of good presentation of your drawings.

Above is a picture taken of my work after the class. Its low resolution..badly lit and has some image distortion due to the picture not being taken front on. This stage of the drawing is a reasonably successful blocking of the light and shadow shapes.

and here is a good quality picture taken at home after a little bit of extra work without the model

This is actally the same drawing although i took a good quality photo with no distortion and i cropped the image for a better effect. A good crop is very important as by cropping your re-designing your image. I usually draw with that in mind.

Because in the class session i blocked in the shadow shapes on the model i was able to see were my light and shadow shapes are. So at home the first thing i did was to darken areas of my shadows and refine my midtones by blending the edge of the shadow side (the core shadow) into the light side. I could then pick out a few highlights where i knew they would be like on the knee and shoulder. This makes the drawing look more 3 dimentional and more finished. All without any photo reference.

I heard one teacher say that if you have a successful block-in of your drawing the finish will take care of itself. So its important to have consistently strong blockings.