This article was written January 8, 2024 as part of the 2024 Learning to Draw People Challenge
Here is the outcome of my first day of the drawing challenge. I ended up spending almost 1h25mins on it, so my first day was quite productive from that point of view. Also, I apologize in advance: I tried to make some gifs out of the process, but had some major issues the gif’s colors. Also, it turns out the app I use does not add a line until it’s completed and the pen is raised. This isn’t an issue while drawing, since the e-ink physically appears as the pen passes. However, it makes for an underwhelming viewing experience.
Before starting my drawing session, I decided to make a detour to purchase a small ruler. I figured that being able to make small measurements and to draw straight lines might be useful. It turns out this was the a good decision.
After this purchase, I went to a Cafe and started to check the book. After looking at the “lesson” I was to follow, I realized I should probably start with some basic exercises. For this reason, I started by drawing an ellipse and trying to trace over it for a while. I’m…not great at tracing an ellipse.
After some time, I decided it might be a little easier to divide the task. Instead of drawing a full ellipse, I added the two straight lines (guidelines for the face shape), and split the task in four, independently drawing the sections in each quadrant. (I also added a neck to better follow the book). I also tried to make a few fixes here and there to the shape.
Once that was done, I looked at the first few examples demonstrating the shape of a head, and decided to start over and practice this step once more. I once again drew two perpendicular lines, took measurements from the book, and added a few annotations to show the head’s oval should be aligned, roughly. This time, I made a lot of corrections to it to try to get an acceptable result. Once that was done, I erased everything and started over once more. (My goal was to practice after all)
On my next attempt, I drew the guidelines, and then started with the shape of the head. This time, once I got a passable result, I decided to move on with the next exercise. With this one, I added a few markers and guidelines as shown in the book to mark where the eyes and nose should be. (I may actually have gotten the wrong measurements here). Then I attempted to draw the basic shapes of eyes, nose, mouth and ears. Once that was completed, I went on with the next part, adding simple eyebrows and some complexity to the eyes. The final result is definitely not great, but for a first attempt, it’s not that bad.
Once done, I once again started from scratch. This time, once I got a general oval shape, I tried to update the shape to get more of a jaw-line, as shown in the book. Unfortunately, this didn’t go too well at this stage, so I reverted my changes. I then moved on to add marks and guidelines, before drawing some extra features (I did waste some time on the guidelines, since I got a little confused about the ratios and measurements. I’ll have to look at this more closely tomorrow). Finally, I decided to re-attempt to sketch a jawline. Unfortunately, this second drawings seems worse than the first one. I think this is due to a measurement error with the guidelines, resulting the eyes looking too small. I’ll definitely pay closer attention to this tomorrow. This final sketch is where I stopped on my first day.
A few extra notes:
- I have a few qualms about using my tablet for drawing. In particular, it often detects my hand while I sketch, resulting in unexpected/unwanted “touches”, sometimes messing things up
- It turns out that drawing symmetrical things is a rather tricky endeavor. Because I use a single hand to draw, it means that when drawing the mirror image of a stroke, my motion itself isn’t actually a mirror image, and so one direction tends to be trickier than the other. Hopefully, this is something that gets better with practice.
- I need to train myself to better gauge and draw angles, symmetry and ratios, along with accurate placement of different elements.
- I’m probably going to go on with this sort of simple exercise for some time, since I don’t have proper foundations. Maybe add a few elements over time, but still repeating these very basic aspects to train these skills
That’s it for Day 01, see you on Day 02.
Note that this was originally followed by Learning to Draw People Challenge – Week One Evaluation (Pause Announcement)