Cross hatching technique

Cross hatching is another technique I learned in the past months... really easy but we have to careful where to use dark hatch and where to use light hatch... Tried few from samples got from web, later I tried some from model photographs. Few of the samples I tried from web are posted... as usual need your critics :) I think the pencil also makes difference in this cross hatching technique. Am just using HB pencil, which is where am making mistake I think. Going to browse more on this technique and the paper, pencil which should be used at what places and try some more....

View in all sizes Large Medium Small

Read More

Gesture sketching.... exploring further

In my earlier post I posted on how I was surprised to know about gesure sketches.I also uploaded few of my first try on gesture sketches. As usual I started exploring more on google and youtube howto videos and learned different techniques followed by different people. There is no hard and fast rule that a gesture drawing has, only one we have to make sure is to bring the pose and mood of the drawing to others who see. This is a great way to explain the scene to others and mostly used by animators, cartoonist, graphic illustrators to explain the scene well to others. This also helps lot to finish the final sketch, because with gesture you finalize what should stay where and in what proportion before you actually go into the details of the drawing.

View in all sizes Large Medium Small

Read More

Gesture Sketches - My first try

Its been a long time I concentrated on drawing, struck up with other personal work... Anyway back to form. This time I wanted to try something new and started browsing for drawing books and methods which led me to learn this new method of drawing. Gesture drawing, when I found this way I was surprised and found it interesting. This may sound funny to many professionals since this method is the basic to start with, but I didnt learn drawing formally and its only through my passion. I love horses and there were many tutorials on horse gesture drawing, so tried some of horses. Asusual i need your critics in this to improve myself. Many professionals tell gesture drawing is what everyone should start practicing and fill their sketchbook. This is also the method many animators, illustrators, cartoonist, graphic designers etc follow. Waiting for your critics...

View in all sizes Large Medium Small

Read More

Women's Day 2012 Drawing Competition

After almost a year after am back with my new drawing.. This was a request from my sister to participate in women's day competition. She wanted to project uniqueness of women, immediately which stuck my mind was Motherhood, which is the only one a man cannot feel, or experience, so kept that as concept and started my hunt on web, I liked lot of drawings, but with the 2 hour time I had, I could only draw this. First time tried this freestyle drawing. We never expected anything, but just wanted to participate in the celebration, and to our surprise we won 1st prize in the competition... :)

View in all sizes Large Medium Small

Read More

Draw Lion - Step by Step

After a long time, I am posting a step by step approach to draw a Lion. It is NOT my drawing, but one of my friend, who was kind enough to post his 9 hrs step by step approach in drawing the lion. I have posted his comments while the step by step process. It has come out very well. Drawing a Lion is very difficult, that too a male lion is very very difficult because of its mane of large fur around its face. This is to spread my friend's hard work, respecting his talent.

Step 1	Step 1: Sketch the drawing out with pencil. I draw a grid to help me do this, but that's just my preference because I like to get all the proportions just right. I'm focusing on the major markers in the image (e.g. eyes, ears, nose) and the general outline.
Step 2	Step 2: Start with the areas you are most worried about. It's easier to screw up at the start of a drawing rather than the end! The mane was definitely the area I was most worried about. I knew I could do the face, but I'm still gaining experience with longer hair. My strategy for the mane was to draw in some of the major shadow areas first. Try to draw what is behind the hair rather than hair itself. This will make the hair patterns 3 dimensional. I used strokes that matched the texture of the mane - generally long frizzy hairs.
Step 3	Step 3: More time on the mane. I added some basic shading to the hair to start filling in areas. At this point I start to believe that I'll be able to get the mane to work. That's a big relief so next I will try ink in the basic shapes of the face.
Step 4	Step 4: Drawing the eyes always starts to bring pictures alive. it wasn't too hard for this drawing - basically just fill in a few black areas. I almost always using a stippling approach for the eyes. It gives them a glassly look that contrasts well with the long strokes used for hair. I'm usually anxious at this point to pull the whole drawing together so I draw a bit here and a bit there until I see the whole shape.
Step 5	Step 5: This step filled in more of the facial hair. This hair is all very short compared to the mane so of course you use much shorter strokes. I'm not worried about the correct shading yet and am mostly focusing on getting the direction and lengths of the hairs correct. Some of the hair, like the tip of the nose, is so short that I just use dots. This update doesn't look like that much, but it took a while because there was a lot of detail that had to be worked through – location of black whisker spots, subtle hair direction on cheek and forehead, etc.
Step 6	Step 6: The initial texture of the whole drawing is now in place. Next will come more detailed shading.
Step 7	Step 7: Lots of small changes now. I added a lot of darkness to the mane to give it some depth. Plenty of darkening of the face and ear.
Step 8	Step 8: Another pass of darkening. I spend a lot of time now just looking at the picture. I've got a number of tricks that let me view the drawing in different ways: - Squint or blur your eyes. This forces you to focus on the general shading patterns rather than the details of the strokes. - Look at the picture in a dim light. In a bright light you focus on the individual pen strokes rather than the overall image - Look at the picture from across the room. Same as above, when viewing the picture from far away you focus on the big picture rather than individual strokes. I tend to draw for an hour or two and then hang the picture up on a wall. Every time I walk by it I notice something and make a mental note for my next drawing session. - Look for shapes of dark and light. Sometimes you focus too much on drawing the dark parts. This can result in a bunch of shapes that are not in proportion to the overal drawing. Look at the shapes of light areas and try to get them to match the source image to achieve overall balance. A good example in this drawing is the "Y" pattern of dark in the cheek. Look both for the Y shape and also the circle of lighter shading formed under the Y along the jaw line. They both need to be correct for the whole drawing to work. - Look at the picture up side down. This is a good trick to focus in on shapes. When you look at it right side up, you see the image. When you look at it upside down, you only see shapes.
Step 9

Copyrights of this step by step series belongs to Scott Woyak

Read More

Scribbling - Awesome creativity

Hereafter do not complain your kid is scribbling in papers, it could rather end up in new way of drawing. One such artist who only scribbles in papers has developed skills in drawing whatever he see with just lines scribbled randomly. There are many lessons to be learnt from the drawings posted below. If you see, dark places the artist did not use lines, instead he has used black color totally, and in places where light is required he used very minimal lines. Shadow in most places are too much messy lines or black shades.

• Keep in mind that a scribbler isn't just creating random lines and loops. He is practicing what it's like to communicate on paper. He might not want to let others see his efforts if, for example, an older sibling talks about scribbling in an insulting way. You can help by talking about his scribbles as "working on your writing."
• Encourage scribblers to use their scribbling skills during dramatic play to make signs, play money, or pretend mail.
• Talk to a child about her scribbles. You might ask, "How did you get the crayon to make that line?" "What did you think about saying?" Comment about marks she has made: "That one looks like the D in De'andre's name." "Did you enjoy making all those swirls?"
• If a child shows you some scribbles and asks you, "What did I write?", you might try asking him, "What do you want it to say?" or "What were you thinking about when you were working on it?"

Hope this starts a new drawing technique among youngsters. Some web resources on scribbling

The Essentials of Early Literacy Instruction - http://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/200303/Essentials.pdf
Sometimes a Smudge Is Just a Smudge and Sometimes It's a Saber-toothed Tiger - http://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/200407/LearningArtsThroughTheAges.pdf
Making the Drawing/Literacy Connection - http://www.wiu.edu/thecenter/articles/draw1.html
Encouraging Preschoolers’ Early Writing Efforts - http://www.childcareexchange.com/resources/view_article.php?article_id=5019684&page=3&keyword_id=
Promoting Reading Success - http://www.canberra.edu.au/centres/ncclr/attachments_page/pdf/Promoting-Reading-Success-Strategies-and-ideas-that-work.pdf
IEL Interactive Chat: Encouraging Literacy Development in Preschoolers - http://illinoisearlylearning.org/chat/scott/index.htm
Drawing a Friend - http://illinoisearlylearning.org/videos/drawing-friend.htm

Read More

Animal Series - Great Collection

This time I am with animal drawings. I was inspired to see many details in these drawings.
Note the details of the hairs in each drawing. These are mostly dots or small lines to get that hairy effect.
The artist has used lines in some places and dots in most of the places. see the difference in potraiting the hairs.
I would rather tell it animals drawn using dots

Read More