Daily Sketching : Thoughts

So....for anybody reading this blog you might have noticed I closed it for public for a while. During this time I ran a secondary blog project where I would draw random figures from imagination for an hour every day. I did this for a consecutive 62 days and than I stopped, not because I was lazy but I'll go into more detail below why.

DAILY SKETCHING: What was on the menu?

I recently discovered an artist called Michael Hampton who teaches anatomy to industry professionals. He also runs a course on CGMA.

Link to his blog

Link to his course

(image from the blog of Michael Hampton)

I got his book and really made it my goal to get through his book and improve my anatomy. His anatomy is particularly aimed at concept artists who use anatomy to invent and design. This is why I wanted to draw figures for an hour every day so I could put my newly gained anatomy knowledge into practice.

So for an hour I would draw figures from imagination without reference(with traditional pencils and paper - no use of an eraser), the average would usually be around 4-5 drawings per hour.

Some examples below (10-15 mins each)

DAILY SKETCHING: IS IT WORTH DOING?

Yes and No. Let me dive into a bit more detail.

Of course sketching every day for an hour is good, it's not like you can get worse right? I would actually say that you can get worse, daily sketching works really well in combination with studies. When I started doing these dailies, I would spend about an hour doing anatomy studies, and then I would sketch characters for an hour from imagination.

The ideal situation would be to spend 3 hours per day sketching:
- 1 hour studies
- 1 hour applied studies (in the case of figure studies, you could draw from photographs and apply what you learned in your studies)
- 1 hour applied studies from imagination

This is where you can really evolve quickly. But for most people who work full time, adding another 3 hours per day sketching will just burn you out. So in my case I only did the hour sketching from imagination, which after a while becomes boring and frustrating since there is never any new information coming in. If you are struggling to draw knees for example, you can keep drawing knees every day but if you don't have time to study from life or books then you'll just keep making the same mistakes.

Some more drawings:




SO WHAT NOW?

I will still try to draw daily (although I don't really need to force myself as I genuinely love drawing and really miss it if I don't even put down a doodle a day). But basically I will approach it in a less structured way. Switch back and forth between some studies and drawing from imagination to get the best results. I am still learning too much at work to put additional pressure on myself during my time off. The best way to assure you're drawing consistently is when you ARE HAVING FUN.

I'll be posting up the best drawings of the daily sketches separately in future posts.