Drawing Tutorials and Exercises

Just a collection of links today while I recover from some (more) traveling undertaken this past month. These online sites will be especially useful if you've had little or no formal art education--you'll get a taste (or reminder) of the exercises that students of drawing do. First one is the most nifty:

Figure & Gesture Drawing Tool
(Yeah, it's the online equivalent of the drawing exercises done with a live model.) Before you think it's just hours of bliss copying a nude girl's likeness on your canvas, know that that isn't the only point of figure and gesture drawing. The great thing is, the page itself explains gesture drawing exercises, and you get a choice of BOTH female and male models.

Still here? 
 
Wings on Humans Art Tutorial 
 (found via Elizabeth Barrette's blog entry, Wing Tutorial Art)
I wish I could credit the maker of this tutorial, but am having trouble finding the original source. If you know, let me know!

Fantasy Art Study on Ning
This group combines drawing studies and exercises on both drawing and rendering techniques (mostly traditional media) and subjects of fantasy art. So if you think you need the basic lessons, but still want them focused on fantasy art, this is a great site! Regular "study group" exercises (using Andrew Loomis' Figure Drawing for All It's Worth and Peter Stanyer's The Complete Book of Drawing Techniques) are posted on the site, and the comments section is where members can respond by posting results from their own practice. It's a place which encourages participation because of this semi-formal format where you read the tutorial, then show your own work.

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Getting It Done

During my casual surfing on the web, links get bookmarked into my "to blog" list sometimes, and I delete them from the list as they get blogged, tackled or decided against. (It's a handy way to tackle surfing and a to-do list in one.) Now, that "to-blog" or "to-do" bookmark list isn't really today's blog subject (but if you found that tip useful, you're welcome), it's that there was a certain link that sat on the list a long time because, well, I thought linking to it would look like I was advocating smoking, and rudely. (I'm not.) Here it is: 7 Lessons Smokers Can Teach Us About Getting Sh*t Done.

The seven tips really apply for those who are mums, or working day jobs, or juggling those two things on top of playing caregiver for older relatives, or night classes, whatever situation you may be in that keeps art from becoming a full-time vocation. And while I've always appreciated artists and creative people who post photos of their work spaces online, I also have resented those lucky gits who don't have to share their work spaces, or have to clear it all up when it's mealtime (I paint at the dining table) or have to stash paintings under the wardrobes to dry where they will (hopefully) not be found or disturbed by the toddler. Sometimes after all the precautions I take, accidents still happen (like soup being tossed and landing onto a painting three feet away), but if one is determined, one can make art (or smoke) anytime and anywhere. Painting on-site for location paintings and speed-portraits has pretty much cemented this lesson for me.

If you've got a sketch or an idea to work on, but find yourself surfing or watching TV instead, put a pencil and a sketchbook in front of yourself anyway and see which activity wins. That's all this week!

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Book Review: 100 Ways to Create Fantasy Characters

100 Ways to Create Fantasy Figures 
Author/Artist: Francis Tsai
Publisher: Impact
Francis Tsai wasn't a name I immediately recognised picking up the book. But he is a talented concept artist and freelance illustrator who's worked for all the big companies, and who didn't start out in traditional art school. On that fact in the introduction alone, I was immediately intrigued and encouraged. He draws a distinction between design-based art education and illustration-based art education, and if concept art is an industry you're aiming for, he makes clear that it's beneficial to have the skills taught in both. (Design helps in effective visual communication and problem-solving, while illustration/fine-art training focuses on observation, documenting and reproducing visuals in various media.) Chances are, unless you're in a course specifically for concept art, you probably have a grounding in one field, and would need to be practice the other on your own. (Or if you're like me, you've got to work on both all on your own!)

It's practical, thought-provoking advice like this that makes clear this isn't just a book of examples and tutorials. It's a book that reveals, from experience, the art skills needed to become a concept artist, or a book, comic, or media illustrator, and how to go about getting and honing those skills. Observation and constant sketching is a must (which made me realise that joining the local urban sketchers wasn't as "useless" to me as I thought), as is gaining a visual vocabulary, learning the problem-solving approach to designing characters, places, AND the final art pieces. This book is not just for browsing through; Francis Tsai goes from the "big picture" advice and long-term strategies for a striving artist, before going into the 100 ways of creating fantasy figures.

So we come to the 100 ways, and if I hadn't already been impressed with the preceding stuff, the bulk of the book is packed with inspirational techniques and strategies to stretch and strengthen one's art. In many ways, I think the book should have been titled toward this end, as the 100 tips aren't JUST for fantasy figues, but artwork that balances figures and/or monsters in their environments and in the art. This book is a keeper: you can always open it randomly for a new technique, or use it more systematically, say, when you need to create a sympathetic character or conversely, a monster; and when you need inspiration, a "hook", or just to climb out of a rut.  

So, there are no walkthroughs in this book, but it's packed full of art examples, good tips and advice. It's not a style you're going to learn how to recreate, but it's a guidebook on how to develop your own style, and how to add to your drawing and design skills, and how to make art directors happy (or, happier, at least). Highly recommended.

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It's 2012!

I have been a bad, bad blogger; I went on holiday and let myself succumb to the post-holiday slump. Anyway, now that's over, welcome back, and into a new year: 2012! I'm not even THAT late, because if you follow the Chinese calandar, the new year (the Year of the Dragon, if you were curious) doesn't actually start until January 23rd! (Ha!)
  
 
If you were worried your errant blogger wasn't returning, or had run out of topics to cover, have no fear of that. First up: Spectrum, that yearly anthology of gorgeous contemporary fantasy art, is accepting submissions for their next compilation until January 27th. I'm going to admit: I think I have nothing up to snuff (yet. There's always next year!) but if you're feeling good about your chances, get your butt moving on your entry! 
  
 
Next: An epic post on the silliness of girls' poses on fantasy book covers was posted recently by the fabulous fantasy writer, Jim C. Hines. (I'm linking to his LJ entry but it's mirrored on his site too.) After you're done laughing and wiping the tears from your eyes, catch his follow-up post, in which he provides links (some of which I've also provided on this blog). This one, however, I must highlight: Men's Versus Women's Poses 


Last one for now: Small Business Resolutions Worth Keeping. There are a few tips on the page, and my favourite is the one about prioritizing and limiting distractions. Having a timer on one's FaceBook/Twitter/surfing time sounds excellent. As is having daily/weekly/monthly goals. (I have a monthly goal to finish at least one "big" painting per month. And this year, a modest but doable goal, I think, to post at least once per week at Fantastic Portfolios.)
 
 
See you next week!
 

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Preciousness, Red Lines and Miscellaneous Links

When I was in secondary school (in the British Commonwealth, this is the name of school you attend between ages 13 to 16, after primary school), I was certain my art teacher was out to get me. Sketches I'd loving tickled onto the paper with my timid 2B pencils would return to me with corrective lines gouged into the drawing, sometimes in what looked like 8B charcoal. Every art student got them, but with my work it'd always seemed more heartbreaking because I'd had widespread assurance the originals were so pretty. Yet, my drawings would still receive more corrective lines than others. (Thanks, Mrs Ong.)


With age comes wisdom, albeit very slowly. When you're starting out, everything you make with your hands is dear and seen as precious. Every pencil mark and paint stroke is done with a lot of sincerity, and having it ripped to pieces is, well, heartbreaking. Years and years down the line, you get jaded: Sketches and drawings are discarded, revised for the client's liking, taken in directions you hadn't expected, and after producing literally thousands of pictures, you may get used to seeing your own work more critically, clinically, and start to anticipate criticisms--and then heed or disregard those in your work according to your emotional and financial needs at the moment.


The lesson that comes with time: What may be dear and precious in your work to you may not be apparent to everyone else. But then again, if you're lucky enough that your work starts off hugely popular maybe this won't be a hard knock you'll have to deal with! But if your art has weaknesses, red lines (or in my teacher's case, 8B pencil) on top of one's work help open your eyes to your pictures' problems and solutions. And sometimes, because you're getting better at art over time, you start being the one applying the red pen to your own work.

 
Here's my own recent example: Tangled (Revisited)


While Lori McNee at Fine Art Tips has several drastic examples:
How I Destroyed a Painting to Make it Better
Give a New Identity to an Unsold Painting!
Rework an Old Painting & Make it Sell!
 

I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. --Jackson Pollock

On to miscellanous links:


The Art Order has issued a new challenge: Levi
 
 
This is a delightful article: The Schweizer Guide to Spotting Tangents

A tangent is when two or more lines interact in a way that insinuates a relationship between them that the artist did not intend.

I didn't know this problem had a name! But it is something I do look out for when drawing. Having come across other artists' images that suffer from the problem, this article explains very thoroughly what to look out for, reasons to avoid tangents, and easy solutions. 
 
 
And this is a HUGE tangent that is NOT art related, but a hilarious comedy sketch, sort-of related to the preciousness of our artistic talents: Talent Dredge from Mitchell and Webb 
 
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Paypal, Occupy, and the Little Guy

I had a happier post lined up, but thought I'd talk about businesses and ethics for this one. There was a little tea-cup storm on the Internet over the last few days that you may have heard about: The Regretsy vs Paypal Debacle that had many Paypal users (businesses and buyers alike) up in arms; the story even made it to CNN. Regretsy, a site I know I've linked to on here, was taking Paypal donations for a toy drive, and long story short, had its accounts frozen for a made-up reason, before public pressure and petitions made Paypal back down and admit (inamumblemumblefashion) that they had made an error.


When I first ran into the story, I'll admit this, I was trying to quell a mindless rising panic when Paypal's exchange with Regretsy included an insistence that the "Donate" button was only for the use of non-profits and "worthy causes". The Paypal Donate button is the button you'll see on blogs, artist sites and webcomic sites. Sometimes it's called the tip jar. The Paypal Donate button lets the person who uses it decide how much to give, and if the money is going to the artist--well, here was my conundrum: Was I a nonprofit? Did I have to register as a non-profit? Was I worthy cause? Was feeding an artist a worthy cause, or did I now have to give up painting and get a "real job"? What about the thousands of other little people and businesses out there offering services and tutorials and e-books with a "pay what you like" model?


Turns out of course anyone could and can continue to use the Donate button for any reason (and Paypal always takes a little cut from each donation). But April Winchell, when this was still playing out, said something really cogent about Paypal's (and indeed, a lot of corporations') actions: 

We are all working very hard in a bad economic climate, and every cent we spend really matters. And corporations continue to treat us like they’re the only ones who are hurting.

We see the erosion of customer care in every sector. No one knows your name. No one makes eye contact. No one thanks you. Even doctors are practicing a completely different kind of medicine now. They have to see so many people to make the same money they used to that they’ve become more like mechanics. They forget your cancer is attached to a person. And Paypal forgets your fees are attached to people who are trying to make a living, or facilitate something good for other people. 

Wading into politics and social responsibility is not something I planned for the Fantastic Portfolios' blog, but I do believe we seem to be living in a climate where it is accepted (nay, expected) that corporations put money before people. (It's capitalism, right?) Corporations don't say they put money before people, of course, but their actions scream it: they report profits even as they announce "downsizing" measures; workers' productivity keeps going on up (ie. they work longer hours and bear more responsibilities) but salaries don't (unless you're a CEO). When you buy products that say "made in China", think about the companies that have moved their productions there so that they save costs--were those savings really passed straight on to you, or are you (and your society) paying now in other ways? Corporations, as part of their legal definition, are "people" and thus they're quick to scream this in defence when anyone want to take them to task for their socially irresponsible actions. Add to the mess that politicians and corporate donations (and CEOs for that matter) are so deeply and inextricably entangled in some industries (healthcare,...

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Housekeeping & Recommended Links

It's December! Wait, what? December? We're almost into a new year, and I'm honestly having trouble keeping up with how fast time is moving! 

In site news, blogs have been disabled on artists' portfolio pages as certain RSS feeds have changed and were causing hang-ups when loading those pages. I'm still looking into it. (And giving LiveJournal the evil eye!)

I do have a couple more substantial blog subjects lined up, but getting the time to sit down and write has been hard to come by, so this is a bit of miscellaneous post.


If you just missed December's Sketch Fest (which happened December 2nd and 3rd), the ongoing themes you can find and participate in elsewhere are "Brigade" for this week's Illustration Friday, "Dragonflies" and "Steampunk" for the first two issues of next year's EMG-Zine, and "Circe" for Enchanted Visions Art.

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Artists Helping Artists

In the free-wheeling and dealing world on the Internet, it's always been interesting for me to note the wide range of artistic styles and abilities out there that are still quite dazzling to me, who managed to live the first 17 years of my life without it. Prior to the Internet, my exposure to art was in the form of books, stationery, art classes and museums. Even with regular exposure to the widest variety of books, it was still looking at art through the filters imposed by industry experts and book editors. It wasn't bad (on the contrary, it was all good stuff) but it was rare to find rough sketches or pictures of work in development outside of biographical books about artists. Even in the early days of the Internet, scanners weren't common, digital painting was (more or less) in its infancy, and the artists to be found online were probably just a fraction of a percentage of the artists you can find online today.
 
 
Recent explorations on the Internet revealed to me that it isn't just artists of various abilities flourishing online, but the tutorials written for artists of varying levels by artists at varying levels. It really shouldn't have been a surprise to me, because some of these tutorials have been the subject of hilarity in some of the forums I roll in (frequently, tutorials by obviously young-male artists trying to teach others how to draw ladyboobs). Maybe it's just the Thanksgiving spirit getting to me, but I had an epiphany looking at these tutorials yesterday, even some of the ones I know I'd have written completely differently: It's all artists trying to help other artists. And this motivation to help is found at all levels of ability--which is brilliant.
 
 
Now, I could end here after pointing out that we could be grateful for this alone (and I'll also provide links to general tutorial sites at the bottom) but I'd like to take it further. Sometimes I find stuff on the internet alluding to artists behaving badly, whether it's stealing (not cool), being flaky (as artists, we're allowed some slack being "creative types", but not too much), ungrateful, jealous, not good at sharing, et cetera. I'm not going to be schoolmarm here, because I've hardly been the model for any type of moral behavior for much of my life, but I will share something: It's definitely no fun being in an insecure place, and being in so deep that looking at other artists gets you down. And after looking at so many tutorials, I wonder if the trick to coming out of negativity is to turn it around, recognise one's strengths, and use them for helping others (this includes other artists). Because everyone starts somewhere. No one is born Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci right out of the womb. There are art teachers, there are informal art teachers, and there's art by tons of other artists we look at everyday, and all and every one of them is going to affect our own art, whether we're conscious of it or not. 
 
 
OK, so some artists may look like they don't need help anymore (if so, good for them; but remember there was a time they did); they're still vastly outnumbered by other artists and beginning artists looking for encouragement. And giving encouragement is something that will keep you in a positive place--and grateful when it's returned!

 
(Disclaimer: Not all generous acts of helping others will be received with 100% glowing gratitude--like these flog entries--but that's OK. ;) Do it to potentially help or to just feel good without expectations of things you may not be able to control. Easier said than done, but this is a disclaimer for you.) 


Besides art-hosting sites and artist's personal websites, art tutorials can also be found on sites expressly for providing tutorials and help for various subjects. And last by...

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Perfect is the Enemy

Pfshaw, has it really been 10 days since my last blog post? I am shamefaced. A lot has been going on, and I suspect that many other artists as well have been taking advantage of this time of year where Christmas shopping (or, Christmas selling) is the top priority of independent shops and artists. What a handy excuse! And handy blog topic.

The title of the post may come from advice you may have heard before, commonly "Don't let perfect become the enemy of the good". Or: "Perfect is the enemy of the good," which, I am again ashamed to find out, originated from Voltaire, who wrote one of my favourite books ever, Candide. (That guy? Genius.)


Perfectionism, it has taken me a long time to figure out, really is a flaw. Here are the excuses I used to run through in my head, to avoid selling my work (and, some of them I'm still using): My portfolio isn't good enough yet. I haven't got my prints of this picture just right, I can't offer them for sale! There's a stray dot on this picture that's bugging me. My web site isn't ready. I don't have photos, or good enough photos, of this product. I don't have a story or description of Shakespearean standards to accompany this product. 


"Not good enough" is an excuse that rears its head constantly, and it's just a delaying tactic. It's used to deliberately place an obstacle between oneself and the Test--Will it sell? Do people want it? Will people pay for it? Deciding not to sell ("yet") yields the same financial result as not having people buy it, but the former lets us keep our ego, while the latter brings on a whole host of disappointments and questions ("WHY?") and may necessitate us working harder to sell, when all we want to do is create art. It's really understandable. But also counter-productive. 


Any job--every job--has bits of it we don't enjoy quite as much as other bits of it. Selling isn't as much fun to me as creating, but until the day I can afford a marketing department, it's a necessity, and perfectionism (useful as it can sometimes be in art-making) shouldn't come into it if it stops me posting services or items for sale. Good enough is good enough. All I need to do to convince myself of this is to visit Regretsy from time to time, and see some truly weird and questionable products that are offered for sale (in various places, not just etsy), accompanied with photos taken in the semi-darkness, and descriptions written in ALL CAPS or wth hillarious spelling errows [sic].


Of course it may be disappointing to spend time crafting an auction, or an etsy posting, or Craigslist posting, or a new product, and get no responses, so start with creating or listing items and services that take the least effort. Those may yield something! And then work up to those that take more investment (time, money, or materials-wise). 


Happy selling!


Recommended links: IttyBiz Confessional: What if I'm not awesome enough?
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Growing as an Artist (Part III: Learning to See, Making It Work)

Tim Gunn (most often seen on Project Runway) has more or less immortalised the words "Make it work" in his voice, and I've often been amused how the designers who hear it will step back, see their creations anew, and yes, try their hardest to make them work. It seems like such an inexact science though; fashion (and art) have always suffered from a wishy-washy reputation--how, it's only for the people who live in their heads, look at things a lot, once in a while go aha!, snap their fingers, fiddle about, then it all suddenly Looks Good, and Art Is Accomplished. I've often run into people who seem to have this idea of art and design, and some of them were (this is what surprised me) artists.


Much as I love the words "make it work", I feel they are too vague to be useful, and they are time-wasters. Art isn't magical, isn't wishy-washy, and doesn't need to be vague. Even the Greeks found it possible to establish the Golden Ratio, the loveliest proportion (you may disagree) of length to breadth of any rectangular shape; the Greeks basically settled on some mathematical principles on how one proportion generally looks nicer than others. And loads of people since the Greeks have found ways to describe and quantify aspects of art and paintings. Observe: contrast, composition, flow, colour choice, colour intensity, key (low or high), drama, dynamism, tension, pattern, movement, texture, energy, proportion, scale, mood, interest, articulation, line, detail, complexity... the list goes on, and not all those words mean the same things, though some seem similar. 


A painting is always more than what it shows literally. It is always more than the sum of its parts. There are, truly, ways to "make it work". That's where seeing comes in--breaking a piece down into as many different ways as possible, so that it works in as many aspects as the artist wants, to create a whole that works for what the artist wants. 


An artist or an art buyer who can only see art for the literal subjects depicted isn't seeing half of what there is to see in it. They may feel parts of a picture subconsciously, like its colours and effect on his/her mood, its energy, or strength of composition. If something is "off", they may not be able to spot or articulate what it is. Conversely I feel that many paintings look good and become popular not just because of subjective taste, but also because that piece got a lot of aspects or elements in it quantifiable-y right, or stayed close to principles that are historically and culturally (even biologically) established as beautiful. Wonderfully, art and style is still diverse because humans are diverse. But do works of art that work (by common consensus) usually have some things in common? I think so.


I was challenged in this lesson not too long ago when a fellow artist showed me two of his pieces of the same subject. They were portraits of a woman holding some flowers, and they were "the same picture": same pose, same composition, same woman... except one of the portraits was in colour, and the other was in graphite pencil. "Why," the artist asked in mild frustration, "does one look better than the other? Why do I like the black and white one more?" (When he had spent more time on the colour?) I wasn't the only artist present, but I was the only one who could articulate that the graphite portrait had better contrast and hence more interest, and a stronger composition (because of the contrast and center of interest) and slightly more texture and variation in tone than the colour portrait, which was all a bit washed out. I got stared at in amazement for making it all sound so "scientific". (And not once did I need to venture into talking about style or subjective taste. I had only pointed out why the black-and-white "worked better".) 


Aha. So, I hadn't gone to art school (...

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