2 Week Drawing Challenge

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

inDrawing Basics

12K

Mark as Completed

Comments 2.6K

Downloads 5

2 Week Drawing Challenge

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

in Drawing Basics

12K

Mark as Completed

Comments 2.6K

Downloads 5

Stan Prokopenko

Challenge yourself to draw every day for 2 weeks! See if you can get into the routine of drawing daily. Set aside a time and put it in your calendar. If you're already drawing every day, then do something to challenge yourself just a little more. Draw a bit longer, but don't go too crazy. Set a manageable goal, because this is in addition to the other project I’ll be giving you later. Everyday fill up one page with linear drawings from life. You can either go outside and draw something when inspiration hits, or find something at home and draw it. Take a photo of your objects if you can. Start by just looking at your subject for 1 minute. Imagine it as a drawing. Draw a few lines, then look, think, execute. Repeat till you're done. Each drawing can take 5-30 minutes, but don’t time them. I'll be drawing along with you guys and posting in the discussion below.

Yury

Ink sketch of the shot from "Psycho" by Alfred Hitchcock

Gannon Beck

2 value sketch from this morning.

Joan Lacasse

My interpretation of 2 Weeks Challange: First part As I draw almost every day, I added an element of my own to make the exercise more challenging. I love flowers, so I chose to draw a flower every day from a small book of beautiful photos of flowers named, «Flower Colur Guide» edited by Phaidon. I dated each drawing for two weeks. I first used C, S and I lines. I made a first passage in pencil 4H and then in 2B. I did not erase the lines of the first passage. So we often see them in the background. As I continued this course, I learned new concepts (Line Weight, type line, etc.). I then had the idea to take again, in a second time, the 14 drawings below and to realize them in ink while trying to apply the concepts presented in the more advanced Lines course. I am now in the Shape section and I am working on Simple Animal Project and on inking the drawings below (which I will present in a future post). I hope you have as much fun doing these exercises as I do.

Gannon Beck

Very nice!

Yury

I love them all. Good job on being consistent!

Gannon Beck

Quick study from this morning.

Yury

Thank you, Gannon, for hosting these studies!

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Kevin Morehouse

And here are my drawings and references for the final four days of the same challenge.

Kevin Morehouse

Here are my drawings and references for the first ten days of this drawing challenge. I focused on simplifying to CSI for each piece.

Styrbjörn Andersson

Other than drawing a camel (for the first time in my life!) I spent the day doing some line art and masking of a visual novel character I am working on. I hope that counts as being part of the "draw every day" challenge, in which case I am now on day three :) (I do not count course projects towards the daily drawing, as I try to follow the Draw a Box "rule" of spending 50% of my time on personal stuff),

Gannon Beck

Here is a daily exercise from me.

Yury

Studying characters from LoTR/Hobbit movies.

Gannon Beck

Very nice!

Styrbjörn Andersson

During today's drawing I learned something that helped explaining why many of my drawings end up feeling stiff - especially when clothes are involved. I realized that often even when I got a decent, dynamic pose, I end up ruining the gesture by drawing clothes that do not conform to the motion that I want to convey. In this case I was on the verge of doing the same thing, but luckily caught myself in the sketch stage. In the attached image is the before and after version of Little Red Hood. The idea was to make her body twisting, with her head continuing the motion (as shown with the rough shapes to the right). However, when I added her skirt I just left it hanging straight down with her legs standing straight together (left image). This killed the motion, and something felt really off because of it. Normally I just shrug and move on to refined line art and shading, but this time something clicked. I corrected the skirt so that it followed the pose more closely, and I feel that the new result (middle one) works much better.

Gannon Beck

Nice! Good adjustment on the skirt.

Gannon Beck

Daily exercise analyzing a character from "Monster Hunter".

Yury

Very nice exercise. I cannot wait to learn this tool from Figure Drawing. One small nitpick with upper-left hand palm. Inner side of palm is loooking at us on the original drawing making more dramatic effect.

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Gannon Beck

Here is one of the drawings I've done this week. This week, I've been doing structure drills with some friends. Next week, we'll be focusing on value drills.

David Kobilnyk

12h

it's interesting that you managed to capture emotions and dynamism of the original despite how simplified it is

@aubrey

I love this! It's really dynamic and fun to look at, Keep up the good work!

Styrbjörn Andersson

Daily random sketching. I suppose it might be a good idea to get some none course related drawing in every day as well.

Gannon Beck

Very nice!

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@aubrey

Lately I've been drawing just for fun, This is my drawing of the day! the proportions are off, and I was trying to imply the fathers instead of stating them. I don't really like the way I went about it though. The longer I look at it the more I dislike it.

Yury

Nice sketch. Don't look at it too much! :-) Just draw another one!

@lieseldraws

11d

How can I see things correctly? I literally can't draw what I see. As part of the 2 week challenge, I've decided to draw from life despite many past failures. The problem is I can never seem to see things "correctly" - the way they are. The proportions and angles so elusive to capture when drawing from life (and from photos). So my drawings almost always seem off. Take the photo attached for example. I swear the Z axis looked longer than the X axis...and only when I measured it did I realize to my surprise (!!), that Z is shorter than X . My mind was blown. It's like my eyes are playing tricks on me. And even now, Z still looks longer than X. How do I fix this problem of misperception? Any advice? Wondering if I should just keep drawing and then take photos and measure and correct and just repeat. Would this help? Frankly speaking, it's so discouraging that I can't draw what I see :(

Gannon Beck

One thing that helps with a drawing like this if you're drawing it from life is to close one eye. As Yury mentioned, we experience stereoscopic vision. You are literally receiving a different image in each eye. Close one and then the other to see what I mean. If you want to see the convergence more clearly, close one eye. Another point that is worth making is that this is that we have only covered one point perspective so far. While you *could* draw this as a two point perspective box and it would read fine, three point perspective would make it more accurate. All three sets of lines are converging. Don't get discouraged. Even attempting this until the point of frustration is preparing you for the knowledge to come. You are acutely feeling the perspective itch that needs to be scratched.

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Yury

It is a trick played by our mind. It is called stereoscopic vision and let us see (sense) world better. To supress it and to figure out what are the real sizes of 3d lines and planes when projected to the 2d surface of the paper, you can use pencil to measure true sizes of those projections or you can draw, draw, draw while learning perspective to get better at it. There is not way to learn it without knowing perspective and also applying that knowledge many times. Don't get discouraged. Everybody goes through this stage.

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Yury

11d

The hardest thing is to be consistent and give time to drawing every day. IT IS REALLY HARD. Many factors are obstacles. Having full time job does not help too. I find myself constantly blaming myself for being lazy and not drawing. But in fact, I am just dead tired every day. So hard to keep balance and dedicate time to drawing. The only trick I found working for me is to make a slot of time just after the breakfast when I get up early. But even that trick does not always work. But sometimes I just do not want to draw in the morning, especially when I had a blast with drawing at evening before. There is some kind of battery of motivation to make art in me and it is very small battery, unfortunately.

@lieseldraws

11d

First of all, that's an amazing drawing! The lines are so crisp. Second of all, I really feel you on the challenge of drawing every day. After a long day at work, I find myself procrastinating on drawing, especially when I know it's going to be something challenging. Which doesn't feel right. I mean, drawing should be fun, right? It shouldn't feel like a chore. I guess it's because many of us want to make beautiful art. Keep messing up at drawing doesn't exactly help with the exhaustion at the end of the day. But hey, you're still making an effort to be consistent. I think that's great! Keep up the great work :)

Vera Robson

11d

Having to work a full day every day is a real bummer, especially when the job is demanding. I feel your pain! I keep reminding myself that to have a stable job and art as a hobby may actually be better than to be a starving artist - at least I can afford the supplies!

Liandro

11d

Interesting insights, @Yury! The 2-week challenge isn't called a 'challenge' by coincidence - it can indeed be really hard to keep a long-term consistency with our drawing practice. You said it all: life simply gets in the way. Work, children, health, love life, family members, social life, housekeeping, errands and even other interests, activities and hobbies. Life is complex - and, oddly, a lot of times, these "non-artistic experiencies" are the fuel we can use for our artistic creation when the time comes. The 2-week challenge is an experiment, a laboratory - and not all experiments work flawlessly every time. Good to know that we just need to reset the counting, start again and keep on going. Overall, I think It's fine to remember that we're human beings before being relentless artists, and, if we're able to cultivate art over long periods of our lives, even with the ups and downs, that's consistency, too. Pressuring ourselves to "not miss a day" and berating ourselves when we do is just another form of perfectionism. Stunning drawing, by the way!