by Henk ter Heide on Friday May 15, 2009
I realized that I had forgotten to draw the front view of the ear.
Since it would be a waste of paper to only draw one ear and then move on to drawing the whole face. I thought it would be nice to search the web for a photo of eyes and a nose. So I could do one last drawing of the parts of the face before moving on to the complete face.
But I ran into a problem drawing the right eye.
When I draw eyes I draw a curving line from the outside of the face to the inside. And use two dots to guide myself.
With the left eye (right for the on looker) that means drawing a line away from my hand. So I can see the dot I have to aim at to get the right shape.
But with the right eye (left for the on looker) I draw in the direction of my hand. Which means my hand is covering the dot. So I can’t see what I’m doing.
Of course this isn’t the first time I’ve run into this problem. It’s just that I always thought that I would solve it before it would become a nuisance. Clearly I didn’t.
A well. I can’t think of a solution right now, but I’m sure that I’ll find one if I put my mind to it.
img043
I realized that I had forgotten to draw the front view of the ear. Since it would be a waste of paper to only draw one ear and then move...
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by Henk ter Heide on Thursday May 14, 2009
I tried my hand at drawing an ear. Jack Hamm’s book helped me to get some feel about the general shape an ear should have (img040). Then I search for a photo of an ear and tried to draw that.
I found that I have the tendency to use to dark lines while sketching. The problem with that is that lines have two purposes. Not only do they mark the edge of the subject, the ear in this case. They’re also used to show ridges by representing shades. When you use to dark lines to mark edges it looks like there is a ridge where there should be none.
Yesterday I said that I figured out how shading worked. Today I tried it again.
It’s kind of a trick.
I find that I have two modes of looking at a drawing. In the one mode the drawing is flat and darker and lighter areas are just that. Darker and lighter areas.
In the other mode the drawing becomes 3 dimensional and just by looking at the ridges it becomes obvious where shades will be cast and which areas should be darker and which should be lighter.
The trick is to switch from one mode to the other when your drawing needs it. A few days ago I did that by accident and it felt like an epiphany. I didn’t even know it was possible.
Today I couldn’t get it to work so I had to do it the old fashion way: Work on something else for a few hours and when you return to your drawing you’ve switched.
Then you can see what you actually drew. You can think about what you should do with your next drawing but you can’t actually work on the drawing.
img040
img041
Posted on Flickr by Henk ter Heide
I tried my hand at drawing an ear. Jack Hamm’s book helped me to get some feel about the general shape an ear should have (img040). Then I search for...
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by Henk ter Heide on Thursday May 14, 2009
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by Henk ter Heide on Wednesday May 13, 2009
After my last post Tammy commented: “Nobody nose noses like you noses ‘em!”
I very much like that kind of playing with words. So you’ll understand that this drawing isn’t about mice but about mouths.
The challenge with this drawing are the curving lines that have to meet each other at a specific distance and the shading. But it turned out that both are very much easier then I thought.
To draw curing lines you have to sketch them very lightly. Using a black pencil from a color pencil set instead of the grey HB pencil that is usually advised for this type of drawing, makes that a lot easier. With a black pencil a number of hues between white and black becomes much greater. Which means that you can sketch with a very light stroke and later cover it with the actual drawing.
The shading also turned out to be much easier then I expect. Only thing is that I don’t jet know how to describe the process. I’ll come back on that one.
While doing these sketches I had a feeling I’ve never had before.
For years people have been telling me how talented they though me to be. To which my reaction has always been “you should only know how many hours I have spend drawing, to know that it’s not talent but sweat”. But while doing this sketch I actually felt that people might be right and that I indeed have some talent.
Feeling talented is actually both a funny and a frightening feeling. Frightening because it has some consequence I didn’t know how to deal with right away.
So I didn’t post this sketch the day before last, as I should have. But took some time to think about the consequences.
More about them in my next posting…
3 mouses
After my last post Tammy commented: “Nobody nose noses like you noses ‘em!” I very much like that kind of playing with words. So you’ll understand that this drawing isn’t...
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by Henk ter Heide on Thursday May 7, 2009
I’ve started with the book “Drawing the head & figure” by Jack Hamm, which is considered the best book the learn to draw the human figure.
As instruction manuals go it’s quite an odd book. As you would expect it starts out with some instructions on how to draw the shape of the human head, but that are the only instructions you get. The rest of the book is filled with a collection of drawings of body parts. It’s left to the readers own inventiveness to figure out how to draw them.
I didn’t start at the beginning of the book. Since I have been having a lot of trouble drawing noses that seemed as good a place to start as any.
I found that the nose is indeed very difficult to draw.
At first I tried to copy the noses as good as I could, but that didn’t seem to work very well. After doing a few noses I tried drawing the general idea. That worked as poorly as the first Idea.
Only while doing the 11th nose I figured out what the problem is. Until now if I wanted two lines at a specific distance from each other I would start the second line at the point where it was nearest to the first.
But when drawing a nose that isn’t possible. You have to aim a curving line in such a way that the two lines will be at a specific distance half way through the curve. It’s very difficult to judge where you have to start your line and you need a very steady hand to pull it of.
I’ll have to see if I can find some exercise to practice this.
Noses1
Noses2
I’ve started with the book “Drawing the head & figure” by Jack Hamm, which is considered the best book the learn to draw the human figure. As instruction manuals go...
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by Henk ter Heide on Monday April 27, 2009
This was meant as part of a larger drawing. But as soon as I started I realized that the size of chair was too large to fit the rest. So I thought I finish it as a kind of study. To get a feel for what I was planning.
Since I have a tendency to loose myself in the details I thought I draw this more abstract. Drawing the colors without giving much attention to the shapes.
That went very well for a while. But then I made a mistake and got so distracted that I couldn’t continue the drawing.
That I get so distracted every time I make a little mistake means that I’ll have to try something I’ve been dreading ever since I started drawing.
I’ll have to try to make a single line ink drawing.
The funny/panicky thing about a single line ink drawing is that you are sure to fail. That is even if you succeed in drawing a reasonable picture of, what ever it is your drawing, you will always find a lot of mistakes. Which means it’s the single most frightening thing to do for somebody that is as focused on details as I am.
But on the other hand.
If I can get through this.
What could hurt me?
Chair filled with odds and ends
This was meant as part of a larger drawing. But as soon as I started I realized that the size of chair was too large to fit the rest. So...
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by Henk ter Heide on Sunday April 26, 2009
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by Henk ter Heide on Wednesday March 18, 2009
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by Henk ter Heide on Thursday March 12, 2009
It’s strange how you can never see
something that’s staring you in your face. For the past two years I’ve been trying to draw photo realistic but I could never get it. But for the longest time it escaped me why that was. Only a few weeks ago it finally dawned on me.
I don’t have any pictures on my walls because they bore me. That seems to be one of the drawbacks of having a photographic memory. Within a few days a picture on the wall starts to feel like the rerun of the rerun of a show I didn’t want to see to begin with.
So why did I ever think that I could be interested in spending weeks creating an image of something I’ve seen in real life?
This drawing derived
from a picture I was planning to copy. This drawing was more fun to do then most of the drawing I’ve done so far. But I still didn’t feel satisfied.
While doing this drawing I realized that I’m actual not interested in shapes. I’m far more interested in playing with colors.
So for my next drawing I will be doing something that’s the opposite from this one.
Abstracting three trees
It’s strange how you can never see something that’s staring you in your face. For the past two years I’ve been trying to draw photo realistic but I could never...
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by Henk ter Heide on Sunday December 28, 2008
This drawing is going to be a copy of this landscape painting by Francesco De Iure.
Just like with the last drawing I started out thinking I’d concentrate more on the colors then on the shapes.
1230a
But I found very quickly that wouldn’t work with this drawing. Clearly the relation between the tree in the foreground and the mountains in the background is very important.
So I started again this time starting with a sketch of the tree and it’s surrounding.
I used the lightest hue of gray I have in my color box. Even then I was a little scared it would show up in the scan. But luckily it didn’t. Although it does make for a rather strange picture.
Just like with the last drawing I came across the problem of having to use colors I don’t have in my drawing box. But this time I’ve found a better solution. Instead of just layering a few colors on top of each other I tried blending them. That worked out much better. The color I got looked much more like the original.
It feels a bit strange to start with the light background and then work my way to the foreground. Especially since I’m not really sure how I’m going to draw the tree.
This painting looks a lot like the Bob Ross painting you used to see some years ago. I’ve always been wondering how to imitate the cutting colors with a knife using a pencil.
1230b
This drawing is going to be a copy of this landscape painting by Francesco De Iure. Just like with the last drawing I started out thinking I’d concentrate more on...
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