Art Quest Update 7-15-24

The quest continues, Fellow Creatures.

 

I’d like to say it’s been smooth sailing, but that would be far from the truth of late. Other priorities have taken the place of when I would be focusing on my art.

 

Mostly Summer activities, like sports and camp for the kids and a few vacations… which have all been a ton of fun. So, I wouldn’t say that I’m missing art at the time, but nevertheless, I’m still not getting as much drawing in as I’d hope for.

 

These times, when I do get some time to work on it, it’s usually in the evenings, after all my other responsibilities and goals are finished up for the day (like writing Stone of the Scarred or editing Under a God-Made Mountain.) 

 

When I do have that time, I’ve been focused on finishing up Will Terry’s Creative Composition class from SVS.  

 

It’s been a wealth of fun to understand what makes a compelling drawing and how to tell a story within it. The course comes with just over 20 exercises to help you practice the various principles like emphasis and value design.  Each a good way to engrain these fundamentals into one’s noggin.

 

Here’s some of the various thumbnails I’ve put together as part of the class. They might not look like much at first glance, but it’s all in practice of stylization, division, congruency, etc…

 

 

The final assignment has been to create a full composition of the following sentence, “The lizard scampered down the tree to hide from the squirrel.”

 

A pretty simple prompt at first glance, but trying to pull in the 20+ principles from the class is another beast entirely. 

 

I’m still trying to finalize my rendition of this final assignment to check off that I’m finally done with the class.

 

It’s taking me a while to finish it too. Despite me laying the groundwork and outlining the drawing, I’ve yet to be successful in taking it to the final stage.  It’s intimidating to me, and I can’t quite put my finger on it why.

 

Perhaps because its flexing new, unfamiliar muscles for me? Perhaps because it’s a longer more complicated work and I’m used to doing quick sketches that are satisfyingly complete after 5-10 minutes?

 

Whatever the reason, I know there is growth on the other side of it and I need to suck it up and get’er done.  

 

While I procrastinate on this final stage of the composition class, I continue to experiment with figure drawing/drawing from my imagination.

 

You’ll see some of what I’ve been up to since my last update.

 

 

I like some of the ones I put together, but others, I still feel like need plenty of work. Including slowing down and improving my line quality.

 

While I still have a few more composition related courses to take/books to read, I’m going to pause before moving onto portraits to improve my line quality overall.  

 

I still look at artists like Kim Jung Gi, Karl Kopinski, and Feng Zhu with envy at their gorgeous line work while getting frustrated with the sloppy, hurriedness of my own. 

 

Not sure what that will look like, but I’m sure Youtube and Google will be my friends here. 

 

And then, after a couple dozen hours of practicing line quality improvement, I’ll mosey over to drawing faces, a troublesome subject I’ve never been able to master.

 

I’m hopeful, that as I go deeper into anatomy and character design, the figures drawings I’ve spent so much time on will start to evolve into more fleshed out pictures that look more realistic. 

 

But only time, and putting in the work, will tell. 

 

For now, it’s back to the quest, and getting myself over the hump to finish this lingering final composition for Will Terry’s class.  

 

I’m excited to share the outcome when I finally do. 

 

Until then,

 

Stay hunting, Fellow Creatures!

 

-Jeff