Alex Dejak
Alex Dejak
Cleveland
Joël Gruben
Hi Alex! Fantastic study series you have here, congratulations! I personally used this "three crayon technique" extensively myself and it is a great way to quickly draw lively figure drawings! I think you know about the proportional errors you made in the studies, so I won't get into them, just compare with your reference material. I have some suggestions concerning the drawing technique and how to utilize the different colors most effectively. Using your drawings as a reference, I've made a figure study myself using similar colors and a grey background with white to highten the image. Provided, I've drawn it digitally, the principles still apply though: - I think you're over-using the white for the portions of the figure exposed to direct light. The paper should remain as a baseline for your skin color. The white is only there to highlight the brightest areas of the light side of the figure, not its entirety. In some figure drawings, you are using the white more sparingly but its application is still too inconsistent. The viewer has to quickly understand the form. - I think you should distinguish the shadow side from the light side more clearly. In some of your studies, it is more clear than others. I think this is also dependent upon your reference material: Clear and strong light sources provide strong, hard shadows which is more preferable for making quick figure drawings. - I think you're using the sanguine well to highlight warm colors of the flesh. I personally used it in my attached drawing as the main shadow color because of the de-saturated background color (warm-cold-contrast). Just keep in mind that it should be applied consciously to enhance the piece's vibrance. I hope this helps you with your studies. You can also experiment with different colors and paper colors (warm paper using cold, blue-ish crayons, gold and brown, yellow and violet, red and green etc.). Happy drawing, Joël
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Alex Dejak
Hey thanks this is great advice
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alexOmegas
These look really good! I like that you try to put those figure drawings into some kind of composition, I also do that cause I got a little bit bored by normal figrue drawings. The legs however seem a bit too short.
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Alex Dejak
some of the legs do look a bit short, thanks
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Alex Dejak
It looks like you understand the basic concept and steps to plot out your vanishing points to make a three point perspective box so you are off to a good start. I think if your goal for a drawing is to get better at perspective, you may want to hold off on the organic objects and creatures for now and really push yourself to explore how you can use three point perspective to make more interesting complex objects. By putting this limitation on yourself you can try to experiment with what else you can create using only three point perspective besides boxes. You could try taking a box and work on adding pieces to it and subtracting chunks from it for example. You can try taking boxes and cutting them into letters or numbers or nonsense. Have fun with it and experiment. A major step forward for you might be to try arranging multiple objects in a space that don't share the same vanishing points (VP). For example, as the terrarium is now, it is placed perfectly parallel to the walls of the room, which in real life is unlikely to be the case. If you rotate the box a little bit it will feel more natural. Also different line weights can help define how far back an object is in space. If you use heavier line weight on the objects in front and lighter weight as they recede into space it will help show depth and what objects are in front of others. Go have fun with it and experiment.
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Alex Dejak
This drawing looks really nice. You did a good job rendering out the feeling of hair, it looks like it has depth and feels 3D, and the proportions look good. I would like to see some indication of the body of the dog because right now it feels life a floating head. I think a couple small changes could make the eye a stronger focal point. I don't think you should include the eyelid being half shut. While it may be in the reference, you shouldn't feel obligated to make the drawing exactly like the reference. I would render out the eye completely open without that eyelid and make the inner tear duct cavity dark instead of light to contrast the eyeball and make it feel like its sitting in the socket. If you can create the lightest light on the eyeball with high contrast around it that should help the viewer look there.
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Alex Dejak
It looks like you made some good progress between 20 and 100 There is one major thing that stands out to me as far as what you could work on. It look like you are not adding structure before putting in details which could be fixed by using constructive drawing methods. When you render before the structure is in place correctly the images may still feel flat or proportions are off even if you get the details right. I think if you work on defining how the forms sit in 3D space and the proportions are correct before rendering you will see some good improvements.
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Kristian Nee
Would you rather eat an entire jar of mayonnaise in one sitting, or for 2 months you have to wear perpetually wet socks?
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Alex Dejak
Eat the entire jar of mayonnaise and then wipe the last bits of the jar out with the socks and wear mayonnaise socks for a month
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Alex Dejak
Critiques welcomed, appreciated, and harsh truth encouraged.
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Alex Dejak
Critiques welcomed, appreciated, and harsh truth encouraged.
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Alex Dejak
Critiques welcomed, appreciated, and harsh truth encouraged.
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Alex Dejak
Critiques welcomed, appreciated, and harsh truth encouraged.
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Alex Dejak
Critiques welcomed, appreciated, and harsh truth encouraged.
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Alex Dejak
Yoni: materials: I tried to use all of the same materials Stan used for his Yoni drawing to reduce inconsistencies but the only local art store (Blick) was out of Arches 88 and the associate informed me the product is being discontinued. Upon the associates recommended alternative I used 22"x30"Stonehenge paper and conte a paris 1710 pencils. I found the value I was getting when putting marks down were coming out darker than Stans and hard to control the variation in value. When Erasing on the paper, it was impossible to take off enough charcoal to get down to the white of the paper and seemed to only erase to certain point and then no more charcoal would come off the paper. Trying to problem solve this I decided it is either user inexperience, the different paper I was using, or the Hard MDF backer behind the paper was not allowing enough give when pressing. After putting a cutting mat in-between the MDF to soften it a bit the problem still occurred so I am not sure if it is user inexperience or the paper type as I have yet to try erasing on Arches 88 still. I think it is likely a combination. So I know there are some spots where the value did not turn out how I would have liked and rather than fight it I moved on. Critiques welcomed, appreciated, and harsh truth encouraged. Thanks
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Alex Dejak
A couple of my recent figure drawings. I am trying out the three crayon technique on toned paper and am not sure I am doing it correctly or well. I am using up some mi-tientes and tiziano paper cause that's what I have lying around thats toned so the texture is not ideal. First attempt at the three crayon technique. The four figures on blue is 18"x24" canson mi-tientes, conte a paris Sanguine, White, 1710 HB & 2B, and generals white charcoal, about 30-45 minute poses. I intended to do 15-20 minute poses originally but struggled to get the details in that timeframe because I got caught up redoing the heads and hands. The scale became an issue with the materials I was using and caused me some headaches in some areas. Figures do not feel unified: This was done over 4 separate days with one pose added each day after a morning croquis cafe drawing session. My approach slightly changed with each drawing and adding in the generals white charcoal led to a much more intense white than the conte a paris from the first figure. This is one of the reasons the figures feel disjointed and I rolled a kneaded eraser over the figures with generals white to try to unify the values. I was using sanguine on the first figure very minimally and had to add more later to try to unify with the other figures. Instead of doing the 5 minute pose from the Croquis Cafe session I jumped right from 2 minute to these which I think was a mistake. Taking each pose to finish separately is another reason they feel like they aren't unified. Taking each drawing though beginning phases together before moving on would have led to much better result and more coherence in detail. When the top left drawing was added there was workable fixative on the 3 previous figures. Once I sprayed the fixative after the last figure was added all of the marks on it instantly become completely different, but only on this figure. White marks disappeared almost completely which after adding back in got reduced a second time it was sprayed. Possibly too much fixative, too close, or 12 year old can of krylon needs replaced? Overall I learned some valuable lessons I tried to take into the next drawing. Second attempt at three crayon technique: The three figures on tan is 18"x24" Fabriano tiziano paper, Derwent drawing pencils (Chinese White, Sanguine, Ivory Black) and they were 20minute poses. This was my first time ever using Derwent drawing pencils which feel different than charcoal or graphite to me. I liked that they didn't smudge easily but I didn't like the way they interacted with the textured paper and I struggled to put in a large area of consistent tone rather then messy lines.(Paper recommendations welcome) I intentionally left the faces and hands out or reduced details to focus on the poses and experimenting how to approach this technique. I also made the figures much larger this time to avoid getting caught up on small details. These were all done in one sitting from a single model from a croquis cafe session. It has been pointed out to me the placement of the middle figure comes across as having a shall we say "inappropriate" interaction with the other figures. The decision to use that pose was purely because the space left allowed that to be the best fitting of what was available. Critiques/advice welcomed, appreciated, and the raw hard truth encouraged
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