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You’ll learn the most important foundational concepts for drawing anything and soon you’ll be drawing pictures out of your imagination or from reference.
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Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
LESSON NOTES
Join the premium course to see how I would approach the level 1 “Learning to Sketch from observation” project!
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demo-learning-to-sketch-from-observation.mp4
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demo-learning-to-sketch-from-observation-transcript-english.txt
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demo-learning-to-sketch-from-observation-transcript-spanish.txt
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demo-learning-to-sketch-from-observation-captions-english.srt
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demo-learning-to-sketch-from-observation-captions-spanish.srt
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Alright guys, now that you’ve had some time to work on your level 1 “Learning to Sketch from observation” project. Ill show you how I would approach the sketches.
Did all three during my lunchbreak so I went pretty quick on those.
Overall I was a bit torn between taking the time to really nail down proportions vs being a bit looser/quicker in my approach because it was supposed to be a sketch.
Feedbacks welcome :3
I'm still a bit confused, what's the difference between the previous project (using CSI lines for contours) and this project (sketching)? Is it that the other was focused on approximation and clean lines, and this one is just focused on getting the general idea?
When should we use contouring vs. sketching? These seem very similar to me... Like when should we focus on contouring over sketching and vice versa?
Hey Michael ! I'll try to answer from my knowledge/exp but keep in mind I'm also a student and not an instructor so those are two cents ^^
I think you're very right about this exercice and CSI being very similar, this one is basically an extension of the CSI method lesson from where I stand, maybe with more focus on identifying the flow/rhythms in the reference and really hammering down the confident lines you should aim for.
When it comes to sketching vs. contouring, I'd say sketching is something you'll do almost every time when starting a new drawing, trying to nail down proportions, big shapes, flow, etc...
Contouring on the other hand, is NOT something you'll keep doing as you progress in your art journey and was purely a teaching method and I'll tell you a bit about why imo.
First of all, contouring requires a reference you'll be copying, so it can't be applied to drawing from imagination as opposed to sketching which is a preliminary step artists do when starting a piece.
Secondly, contouring invites you to look at your reference as a 2D shape and identifying the contour of that shape you're seeing. In the future, you'll aim to leave that "2D approach" behind in favor of thinking your references in 3D, the basic shapes that compose them, how they relate to each other in space, etc... This approach is much more flexible as if you can simplify anything to basic 3D shapes (cube, cylinder, etc...) and reuse that simple structure to draw the same object from different angles.
(As the same object can have wildly different contours depending on the angle you're looking at it, I believe you can see the limitations contouring bring)
Hope that helps !
Tried these quick sketches of owls - Are these an appropriate example of the sketching technique that Stan is wanting us to cultivate or these are too chaotic and something more orderly but not as neat as a finished outline is what he had in mind?
Fun!! But oh my god my proportions, but I tried not to be to precious and focus on lines and exploring the forms!!
Did this one after the demo. Tried to focus on big shapes and construction lines to start. Went deeper into detail after that. I found thinking about joint movement helped with the fingers. Happy with how it turned out!
The 1st one is the Pre Demo version. The 3rd is the Post Demo sketch based on the BlueJay.
Definitely was a little more loose this time with more flowing lines. But looks like I jumbled the proportions. The red pencil helps.
Request critique please and suggestions if there are any improvements and points to works on.
This was quite a fun exercise! Unfortunately i made, some mistakes regarding the proportions . I'm not too fond of the penguin and as you can see , the finger alignment of the hand also have some issues .
Finally got around to doing the VR girl after a 2nd round and a rough week. I like how this turned out much more, although I could only find bad drawing angles for the circle thing lol
This is a before and after penguin. I changed over to coloured pencil to try to make me think more before i put a line down - not using a rubber.
i also tried doing a thumbnail sketch since i often get my sizes/ scale wrong, and i hoped that might help.
Post demo attempt, decided to try it with a reference from my breath of fire art book
Before & after the demo, drawing along with Stan really helped me see what matters in this assignment
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3mo
Both look great! Nice work. The second page feels cinematic 🤩
After following along I wanted to have a go at sketching a seal on my own l since I'm obsessed with them
Hey everyone! I hope everyone is making great progress on their drawing exercises. Here is the latest assignment. It is obvious that I was far too precious with my line work before I watched Stan's demonstration. It is quite noticeable in the hand drawings. After watching the demonstration and going back, I definitely understand what Stan was saying about dynamism and being more free-flowing. Although I missed some of that detail from my first renditions, I do understand and respect the amount of time I was able to save by being a bit more loose with my lines on the second pass. And I'm hoping to carry this forward in future exercises, in my personal projects, and as a way to get over my inherent perfectionism.
Because, obviously, I can always go back in and add more detail to my drawings, but just getting the idea out of my head and onto paper is probably the most important thing for me personally. Yeah, this was a very difficult exercise. I agree with everyone else in the comments section. The VR girl was an absolute nightmare. If anything, it taught me that I want to start focusing on getting my proportions and perspective correct. And I'm hopeful that with more practice, I'll get better at those two things.
