SVS Virtual Studio MARCH 2023

[Mark Wilson Illo]

This was spawned from drawing along with Anthony Wheeler's Twitch Stream. The prompt was "Snail Rider" and I loved the characters so much that I wanted to do a full scene with these guys.

[Larue]

@Mark Very cool, as well as adorable and done so well! I can tell you really enjoyed doing this piece:)

[Larue]

@AngelinaKizz Super interesting, looks like it would have taken a long time to complete, fantastic!

[Larue]

@LauraA These came out so great. I remember seeing you work through the sketch phase and you should be proud. Lovely palette as well.

[Larue]

So I accepted the challenge put out by Angelinakizz last month and struggled with this one. I just got an iPad pro and this my first illustration using procreate. I know photoshop but there’s a definite learning curve. Anyhoo, lots of room for improvement but a good learning experience and keeps me drawing!
Prompt was “ as she entered the store, Melissa realized that this was not going to be a normal shopping trip”

[LauraA]

@Kristen-Lango Thank you! And you speak Italian!

[AngelinaKizz]

@Larue oh this is soooo great! I’m still working on mine. School has been overwhelmingly busy, good busy but soooo busy. I’ll post mine as soon as it’s done and then post the next prompt I’m working on.

[Sarah VanDam]

I missed the deadline for @MarcRobinson DTIYS, but I did start something, and I’m going to finish it! Not calling it done yet.

[Asyas_illos]

@Sarah-VanDam I love how it’s going so far!

[Chantal Goetheer]

Have done lots of grading and studying in my free time and very little to no creative work this month. This is my most creative thing from March . Birthday treats.

[agathe]

Here is a piece I've been working on, I went to a small coastal town in the south of France recently where there was a stray cat that was roaming around all the fishermen's stands and grabbing scraps where he could, which inspired me to draw this. It's not at all finished yet, I want to add more details and I am not sure about the woman in the back.

[agathe]

@LauraA I love all of these pieces, but I especially love the texture you added to all of them, and the green highlights you added in the first image, and how you used that same shade to do the borders of the little insert in that same image!

[Mark Wilson Illo]

"Keep yer hands of me pot o' gold if you want to keep yer hands!"

[Sarah VanDam]

Two very different things I made today:

[LauraA]

Hi @agathe! It's not hard to make these textures. You can either download them online or photograph a piece of textured paper on your own (in even light) and clean it up a bit. The trick is not to have the texture take over and look too fake. I use mine as overlay layers and turn down the opacity or desaturate them, depending on the kind of effect I want.

I can relate to your cat painting. I only live about an hour and a half from the French border (though sadly I never go there), and I love the people/scene-watching. The little octopus on the wall, and the tentacles sticking out of the bin, make me laugh and I'm thinking that if the cat became more prominent in the piece--maybe in a "disaster waiting to happen" kind of way?--that would take it from study to children's book portfolio material. I can see from your IG that you already have a whimsical sense of humor, and you said it's not finished yet, so that's why I mentioned it. But maybe this isn't the purpose of this particular piece, so take it with a grain of salt...

[Tom Harshberger]

@Kristen-Lango thank you!

[Blitz55]

Not sure what is and isn't appropriate posting wise but I'm assuming since we're artists nude figure drawing is fine. If told otherwise I'll certainly remove it.

Just felt so good to get back into this after missing a month of it. I'm fortunate enough to have a fiancee that runs a figure drawing group once every other week. It's some of the best practice and I meet some of the best people when I'm there. I also feel like I visually see the most improvement in my art by continuing this practice. It's worth every minute spent there.

[agathe]

@LauraA I've recently been messing around with adding paper textures to some of my drawings as well, I really like the effect it adds to the work.

Where are you located off the French border? In any case, thank you so much for your comments, they are very sweet. I was originally thinking of adding the cat reaching for a fish or hopping into a bin ( I actually have a video of the real one doing that), I will try to think of the best way to rework it!

[agathe]

@Blitz55 These are beautiful! Have you been doing figure drawing long? Do you find that it helps when drawing in a less classic/academic style?

[Blitz55]

@agathe said in SVS Virtual Studio MARCH 2023:

@Blitz55 These are beautiful! Have you been doing figure drawing long? Do you find that it helps when drawing in a less classic/academic style?

Hi @agathe, yes, I've been doing figure drawing consistently (minus a few covid years) for about 5 years or so. I'm fortunate enough to be in a relationship with someone who runs a group so that's really helped.

As far as if it helps with less classic/academic styles I would say a big astounding YES! I would consider figure drawing, especially live and in person, as an absolute cornerstone of practice for just about any artist doing any style.

I could probably go on and on about the different areas in which you will see improvement such as your observation skills, ability to take what you see and get it down on paper, visualize organic forms in 3 dimensional space...etc. These are not even the things tied to anatomy of the human figure of which you will become better at as well, including gestures which is beyond useful as a model will pull poses you never thought about drawing.

Every aspect of it can be utilized in your creative process be it realistic oil paintings or a very stylized cartoon strip, it will benefit from it because it's just good practice.

Now that said, if you can't find a figure drawing class you can still draw from photos. Photos are great but they do have their limits, your mind won't be pushed nearly as much as it would when trying to decipher how to take a 3 dimensional object (person) in front of you and put them on paper. Photos do the flattening out part for you, but still useful to practice from regardless. Especially for difficult poses no model could ever hold for extended periods of time.

At the end of the day figure drawing is just a part of what I think is by far the best practice for any type of artist. Observational drawing from life, always draw from life. If you want to draw and don't have an idea, warm up from life. Draw that lamp, stapler, car, plant, anything. It doesn't matter if what you want to draw is purely imaginative, it will absolutely benefit from the act of drawing from real life.

That may be a lot more than I needed to write but I get carried away. And to be honest, this act of drawing from life has absolutely changed me as an artist, specifically one who typically just wants to draw fantasy weird make believe stuff that doesn't exist.