"Whatever you are, be the best you can be."

Saturday 8 May 2010

Art - Teaching Myself

"Frozen in the Moonlight"

I am a self-taught artist, and still in the process of improving my skills. You can see a sample of my art in the header of this blog, plus some of my works I have uploaded here. Just click on an image to see a larger version of it.

"Gargoyle"


"House"


"Spider"


I haven't done much drawing in a while, I like pencil and colour pencil art - that's what I do best. I'm just not skilled with a paintbrush, probably due to a little too much playing and paint fights in school for me to learn much!

I want to be a fantasy art, I was first inspired by Boris Vallejo, I got a calendar of his back in the 90's, and it kicked off the fantasy art bug in me. I've since sought out new fantasy artists to add to my inspiration, I moved on to the works of Chris Achilleos, Luis Royo, Clyde Caldwell and Greg Horn. I would love for my meagre art talents to reach these standards, then I would be so proud of my work!

So what do I need to do to improve? All the above artists tend to focus on people in their artwork, very realistic figures. My figure drawing leaves a lot to be desired (in my humble opinion), and I want to be able to do amazing and realistic figures. I also don't have a lot of experience doing fantastic creatures, monsters or dragons. I would also love to do more backgrounds to my images, so landscape, and most especially cityscape, I would love to improve on. The simple answer to this - Practice! Now I've figured out what I want to imrove upon, I need to find reference images for these types of images, and practice them over and over again until I improve! So here's a simplified list of what I want to improve:
- Figure Drawing
- Fantastic Creatures, Monsters & Dragons
- Landscapes (Greenery)
- Cityscapes (Buildings & Architecture)
- Still Life (Weapons, Fantasy Objects)
For the fantastic creatures, monsters and dragons, I will need to collect reference images of animals, both furry and reptile animals, to be able to draw fantasy creatures. Once you can draw realistic normal animals, you can learn to draw fantasy animals really well. I've added still life as it occurred to me I don't have hardly any practice of drawing weapons, and the few I have done, have not been very good at all. So it's time to improve on them as well.

If I stick to this plan with my art, and work on these various subjects, by the end of this year I should be able to do these subjects with much greater ease, and be much more able to produce high quality fantasy art of my own. Wish me Luck!

7 comments:

  1. Suerte!!!!!!!!!
    Yo creo que ya eres un artista.
    Ademas con las cosas muy claras y con muchas ganas de aprender y trabajar.
    A mi personalmente me gusta tu trabajo.
    Si te sirve de algo, yo creo que seras muy BUENAAAAAAAAAA
    besitos ascension

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  2. I do wish you good luck. Practice is a good game plan to follow for improvement- smart thinking! One great thing someone said to me once was..."never stop trying and never quit because you think something turned out bad. Save what you hate- go back to it for reference on how far you've come or cut it up and use it in a new piece of art. Never be afraid of the blank piece of paper or canvas and continue to go for it."

    Hope those words help you as they have helped me---I love all of your drawings- I think the spider might be my favorite ♥

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  3. Thank you Ascension! I like to think I am an artist too, but there is always room for improvement. There are many skills I have left to learn. All I have to do is practice regularly, challenging myself, and I do improve! Thank you so much! :)

    (¡Gracias ascensión! Tengo gusto de pensar que soy artista también, pero hay siempre sitio para la mejora. Hay muchas destrezas que me he ido para aprender. ¡Todo lo que tengo que hacer es practicar regularmente, desafiándose, y mejoro! ¡Gracias tanto! :) )

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  4. Thank you Kim, those are very wise words, I like them very much. I totally have that fear at the beginning of a picture, scared of the blank page! Always afraid of it going wrong! Once I take a deep breath and get the outline down though, it's always much easier! :)

    Thanks so much for loving all my drawings, you're very kind! The spider is one of my favourites too! :)

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  5. Yes, practice, practice and more practice. I want to get back to sketching more. I do quick sketches of doll ideas but I haven't kept up with a sketch journal.

    You don't have to spend lots of money right now either. A good basic artist anatomy book and pick up one of those little wooden posable figures. Lets you know where and how joints work. Look at magazines and sketch the people from them. I agree with Kim, keep everything so you can see your progress. I sometimes sketch from the TV. It's fast and you don't have time to think.

    Good luck my new creative friend.

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  6. Wendy, you should definitely do more sketching! I haven't done any in ages, and now I'm finding this is really good - I feel as though my skills and what I am learning is making me take huge leaps forward in my progress!

    I do actually have an anatomy book, though I must admit I've not spent a lot of time looking through it! I get distracted by the fantasy art books and the more colourful fancy images! I like the idea of looking at magazines and sketching people from them, it will be a great way of trying out new and interesting poses. I'd be terrified of trying to sketch people as they are moving on the TV screen, I'm not a very fast sketcher!

    Thanks so much for your help and advice, I'll be sure to try some out! :)

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  7. Eeeek! a spider! Excellent sketch. :-)

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