Who'd have thought it'd be so hard to draw a circle? I sit here, frustrated already, like the last time I attempted for an hour to try my hand at drawing (and promptly gave up.) This time, though, there will be no giving-up, and this blog is proof to hold me to that. I'm going to be uploading my progress as I get better, and hopefully engaging you guys a bit, if just with questions and advice-seeking.
Again, who'd have thought drawing circles would be so hard? My first little exercise is repeated circles and rough face-like ovals -- quickly going through one after the other, trying to hone accuracy in the shape I want without having to spend too much time on it; trying what's recommended; trying to find what feels most comfortable.
A long time ago I was given the advice to warm-up by drawing spirals and circles as warm-ups -- no time spent on them, the same as now. That feels awkward as hell when I'm actually trying to get some specific shape or focus on a "perfect" circle. Even drawing from the elbow, which was advice given in a previous TL blog I read through, feels improper when I'm practicing on a smaller scale. It seems like it makes sense the larger you go, but for this size... well, I'm not convinced.
Sorry for the blurry phone camera (on-top of the already horrid display of art.) I'll take better pictures and clean them up in the future.
Should I at all times be trying to draw from the elbow, or is the wrist fine for smaller stuff? I'd assume so; I'm sure a lot of it just comes through repetition and practice, of course, and different sizes and shapes demand different techniques. I want to start properly, though, so I'm covering alllll the basics. Are there any other basics I should keep in mind when building these fundamental habits?
In the blog mentioned earlier that I read, user ToyotaDemon recommended Alex Loomis books, which I've downloaded and will be looking at soon enough. For now, I crowd-source. Help a brotha' out. For eSports, or something.
If you want to learn to steady your hand, then place a pencil in your hand with your palm facing your face. Hold the tip if the pencil between your index finger and thumb, and let the backend of the pencil rest across your hand and up your wrist. Now draw straight lines about two inches long across the entire paper. Only vertical and horizontal. Do this until you fill up about 10-20 entire sheets. This will help grow your execution.
My girlfriend had to do this during her first year in her fine arts degree, and afterwards (also after other excercises) she could whip out amazing circles, lines, ellipsoids, rectangles, and all of the above easily.
Yes the Alex Loomis books rock, I learned from them as well.
Thank you, my LighT brotha'. I'm not sure how exactly you should hold it, though. Could you tell me the name of the technique so I could look it up, or provide a picture yourself? For now, back to circles.
On July 27 2012 02:51 Cedstick wrote: Thank you, my LighT brotha'. I'm not sure how exactly you should hold it, though. Could you tell me the name of the technique so I could look it up, or provide a picture yourself? For now, back to circles.
Oh definitely:
From here slide the end of the pencil upwards a little so it sits right on top of the middle of the wrist. Note: it's going to be verrryyy difficult to draw properly at first -- that's because this hold forces out what execution clarity you have in your whole arm.
On July 27 2012 02:53 Skiro wrote: try drawing from ur wrist. it's so much easier then drawing from the elbow, for me at least
If you get it down well though, you'll feel much more confident and comfortable using a pencil. Sure drawing from your wrist is "easier", but it's not about what's easier if you want to learn
Dear lord that's tiring for my weak, dainty hands. Already sore a third of a page in. It's like going to a wrist gym. That the entire point? The inside of my thumb and my wrist/forearm are getting sore in a work-out way.
One thing that made drawing nice circles (on a board teaching math classes) for me is to imagine the tangent vectors to the curve you're trying to draw, and possibly imagine some sort of square grid. If you keep in mind that every 1/4 of the way around, you should have made a 90 degree turn, and that arc should connect opposite corners of a square, it's hard to screw up too badly. Also, practice. obviously.
According to Plato, and most of Platonic metaphysics, you can't actually draw a perfect circle, so you should probably go nihilist and say there is no point :DDDDDD
why arnt u drawing something more pleasant to look at haha! Just drawing a circle is like a pianist practicing how to play 1 note 10000 times. That's gotta be pretty boring Why not draw a picture that has a lot of circles in it? Why not use circles for shading? It'll be kinda cool. Give it a shot
Here is a challenge for you, if you choose to accept it: Make a drawing of your ... iono, lamp. But instead of straight strokes or in fact any strokes, you can ONLY draw it in a pixilated way with circles. Circles is the ONLY stroke you can use. Sure you can loosely define an outline with non-circle but the majority of stuff needs to be circles.
I second the Loomis book recommendations, they are excellent. Also I would say that trying to draw a circle is not a good way to learn. I know a teacher of my in secondary school used to tell the story of Picasso carving a perfect circle with one stroke into an acoustic guitar, the point being he was a true master and lesser artists wouldn't be able to do that. Drawing a circle in a number of sketchy strokes is fine too, and all contributes to your style.
Hope the advice helps, I'm still learning every day myself, I can't draw a circle, but I think what I can do is more exciting to me: http://ultimatehurl.tumblr.com
I recommend you to go to http://conceptart.org/ and browse their forums which is kind of a Team Liquid for visual arts in my opinion :p. Article on wiki touching on how to handle the pencil (or rather how little important it is :p).
On July 27 2012 23:56 EerieNewb wrote: I recommend you to go to http://conceptart.org/ and browse their forums which is kind of a Team Liquid for visual arts in my opinion :p. Article on wiki touching on how to handle the pencil (or rather how little important it is :p).
Thank you very much for linking this! I draw alot in my spare time and that site is very inspiring!
It's always great to see people starting to draw, it takes years of practice, but it is a great hobby to have and is well worth it! Circles are actually a good place to start for a beginner artist, but the most difficult concept to draw is the human form, in my opinion. However once you accomplish that you can draw anything! Keep up the great progress!
Thanks for the input, guys. The reason I just randomly started practicing freestyle circles is to... well, get better at circles. I started by looking at some basic head tutorials, and found that I'd even fuck-up the draft circle for drawing a head if I wasn't really slow about it. I wanted to work a bit on accuracy and control a bit, and I think it paid-off. It's a pretty mundane thing to practice and in the grand scheme of things probably not great, but for a first-day'er, between them and the inch-line warm-up that Cecil recommended, I feel like it helped a bit as I indeed watched my control get a bit better after a couple of page sides.
Today I'll simply warm-up with that, but I'm going to be focusing on actually drawing faces and heads. Going to be maaaaaaad frustrating, I already know.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i46.tinypic.com/10sen4n.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://0.tqn.com/d/drawsketch/1/0/r/overhand_up.jpg)
