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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.
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project-learning-to-sketch-from-observation.mp4
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project-learning-to-sketch-from-observation-transcript-english.txt
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project-learning-to-sketch-from-observation-transcript-spanish.txt
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project-learning-to-sketch-from-observation-captions-english.srt
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ASSIGNMENTS![]()
![Benjamin Gustafsson]()
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![Patrick Bosworth]()
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![Benjamin Gustafsson]()
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![Melanie Scearce]()
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![@ralk]()
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![Melanie Scearce]()
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![@pink_mamba_vip]()
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![Giuliana Davar]()
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![Glenn Ference]()
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![@animalski]()
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![Kelly]()
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![@peter_g]()
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![@sharone]()
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![Brandon Andrews]()
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![Michael Hsu]()
Use the three reference images of clean line drawings and sketch them using simple loose lines. Don't try to match the cleanliness of these drawings. Instead, sketch them out with energetic, tapered strokes. Don't hesitate. Just practice moving your arm with confidence. If you draw some lines and then you realize that, Oh, shoot, I need to curve that more. Go ahead and just draw the new curve right over it. As you get more confident that you've found the shape, you can darken those lines and the lighter lines start to disappear. Focus on the big idea and the shapes the lines represent, rather than on each individual line.
For you, Level 2 monster trucks, I want you to start with this Level 1 project as a warmup, and then head over to the Learning to Sketch from Imagination project page for your instructions.
If you'd like to have a chance to be included in the upcoming critique videos, you must submit your drawings below by March 9th 2023.
Good luck and please have some fun!
And lastly the Penguin! I intentionally made it a bit more chubby than the original. Great shapes to practice on
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10h
Excellent! Great adjustment to the model, it's fun experimenting with the established shapes to see how far you can push the character! Keep up the good work!
VR Girl and Hand done. I can't believe the hand is Level 1, it's so hard(!). Had to do it over and over, and will continue practising. Only Penguin left!
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17h
It's cool to see the initial lay-in side by side with the final lines. This is a good example of the next step of refining the loose sketchy lines to create a more complete drawing. The hand lay-in is the best representation of what kinds of lines you want to achieve for this project. You found some really nice rhythms throughout by using your CSI lines, creating a foundation for your final drawing to remain energetic and dynamic. The VR girl is not quite as rhythmic as the hand. There's not as many intentional connections between the parts, and as a result feels a little more stiff and less cohesive in the final version. Don't be afraid to simplify a bit more in that initial drawing and remember to stick to the intention of using CSI lines. Overall though this is great work! Love the varying line weights in the finals.
I do love me some rough sketching.
Learning from Stan and everyone else and drawing through the forms, thinking about the 3D shapes is very enjoyable.
I think I still need a lot of work on drawing neat lines and ellipses, but I guess that really just takes persistence.
•
14h
I really like the energy of your lines! I agree with your point about the neat lines. There's some things you can hold in your mind while you're drawing to help you clean things up.
Try to be really diligent about using CSI lines, just like in the previous project. This type of rough sketching benefits from intentionally designed curves and straights to keep things organized while offering freedom to make more exploratory marks. Simplification to those 3 types of lines also removes unnecessary detail that can confuse the form in the initial stages. You've done a good job of using CSI in these drawings. If there is any room for improvement with CSI it's in the VR girl drawing, which has a lot of detail that makes it easy to get lost in the weeds. Overall though you've done good!
Slowing down and trying to visualize each line before you put it on the page helps a ton. Consider each line as a thought. You may make multiple lines until you express the right thought, which is expected at this stage. Keep your lines light until you find the right one to darken, and the rest will fade to the back.
Like you said, it takes persistence but applying the right intentions helps speed up the process!
This was a really fun assignment using the CSI method, though I did struggle a bit with the VR girl. Any critiques or advice would be appreciated.
I was actually quite nervous to do this one, but it was easily the most fun! I didn't quite get how to loosen up on the penguin, but for the VR girl it finally started to click. My proportions are definitely wrong BUT I'm looking forward to practicing more sketches this week!
I was pleasantly surprised with what I drew here. I could benefit from being a little more loose with my lines.
start from the Spiderman hand, then the Penguin, and ended with the VR Girl. Proportions were the most challenging aspects. The hand still looked like a hand but the other two require a restart as they did not look neither like a Penguin nor like a VR girl 😬
My proportions are a little off - but I think I did a pretty decent job with these ones! I might come back and try again after the demo.
That is my last drawing from observation. It was useful since I realised how much skill I lack. So going onward with the course to improve
Fun to be loose and not worry so much about perfection. Helpful to draw on large sheets for these.
As usual, my proportions are off. I hope this corrects itself over the course. For whatever reason, I wasn't excited to draw the VR Girl. It took me several days to finally finish her. Onward!
I posted the same question here - https://www.proko.com/s/HZGz but wanted to make sure it isn't lost.
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?
