Olga Kovalenko
London, UK
I’m a writer and a self-taught calligrapher. I want to add drawing and painting techniques to my skills.
Olga Kovalenko
added comment inHow to Simplify the Motion of the Torso – The Bean
2yr
My beans after two weeks of practice. At the beginning everything seemed easy, but after watching all the lessons, I feel like I can’t do them properly - can’t understand the movement of a posture and convey it with a bean, esp twists. And my center lines are often off. I will set the exercise aside for a while, as I can’t draw beans anymore lol
Olga Kovalenko
2yr
@Joakim lof @John Harper @Rebecca Shay Thank you for responding to my post, peeps. My bad about not attaching the photos. I’ve done some more beans and now attaching them here with the reference photos. The beans are in the reply to this message as couldn’t attach that many pics.
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3yr
Hello Marshall and Stan, I enjoyed this episode a lot. As a beginner to drawing it does feel crucial to allow & remind myself to "fail fast". However I want to ask about how to determine the sweet spot between pushing yourself and allowing mistakes (imperfections?) in your sketches for learning. Today I was trying to draw simplified joints, the first practice in Proko's anatomy course - and realized my perspective skill is so damn POOR. Some bones are supposed to be cylindrical but the ellipses I drew at the end of the bones just look SO BAD. So in the end I spent most of the time trying to figure out the rights angles of the major/minor axises, making careful perspective drawings of cylinders etc, instead of getting familiar with the joints. Am I leading myself astray here? Or is it normal, even encouraged for a beginner like me to do a bunch of careful perspective practices first anyway?
(Anybody else who read this post, please let me know your thoughts too.)
2yr
@Sirius have you solved your dilemma regards perspective studies vs moving on with the class? I’m having a similar issue with Figure Drawing Fundamentals course, and I’ve decided to add a few lessons on perspective before moving on, and am not sure whether I’m too concerned with accuracy and trying to get to the bottom of the issue immediately.
I don’t know how you guys manage to make those segmented animals so good. I tried and turned out a robo cat lol, then I tried to copy Stan’s flowing style and do less segmenting. It’s been just a couple of days of me doing the animals. Hopefully, I’ll get better at structuring.
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2yr
Some gesture drawings I did yesterday and today, any feedback will be appreciated!
2yr
@Parker Collins it looks like you are overly focused on the outline and your lines get careful and “hairy.” Have you watched a video on Line Quality by Mike Mattesi here on Proko? If not, I highly recommend it, it really helped me to start understanding gesture.
Try using less lines and make them longer. Maybe make some circles to loosen up your arm. I’m on the Bean now, and I notice that it also helps with loosening my arm and approaching gesture - lots of circling.
Keep on!
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Some feedback would be appreciated, I feel like I am getting the hang of the bean
2yr
@aruki the beans look good!
Try to evolve them so that they feel more gestural. If you watch more of Stan’s videos, they show how he starts making the beans more fluid and thrown as a gesture, and how he starts adding lines for the limbs, so basically they become as fluid as gesture pics from the first section.
Another thing that he does is making parts of the beans in bold - where the tension is or a fold of skin. Try adding more accents this way.
2yr
Before I start doing assignments, I would like to point out something. The link to pose pack under the "assignments" category is not working. If I understand it well, each lesson was supposed to have some assingment pictures avalible by default, but they don't. It seems that my options are either buy premium packs or search for good photographs for gesture drawings by myself.
2yr
There is a free pack. I don’t remember how I stumbled upon it, but you should receive an email giving you a discount code making a pack of photos free. I think you get it after you purchase the Premium course. I got it a month or so ago, so it should be working.
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2yr
Asked for help
I’ve got trouble understanding direction of the center line. I attached two images, in one Stan is drawing a bean and the center line on top of the torso is convex. I don’t understand why, as the model is throwing her chest forward. Wouldn’t it be a concave shape? Would be grateful for an explanation! I seem not to grasp this part in every similar example he makes.
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2yr
Hi there, I just started the courses and these are a few of my 2 min gesture drawings. I am unsure of what I’m doing wrong or right. Any advice would be appreciated, thank you.
2yr
@limmy I really like how fluid most of the poses are. I still can’t get it. I’m a beginner, but I’ve watched a video with critiques where they talked about an issue that you might be having - some of the poses have those “itchy-scratchy lines” - many short ones instead of long and few lines and it seems like there you try to show an outline instead of capturing the energy of a pose.
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2yr
Here are my gesture exercises after 2+ weeks of practicing. I’m going to move on to the bean as I’m getting frustrated with the first lesson - I feel like I don’t get something that would help me to convey such aspects as foreshortening, exaggeration and showing the form as something 3d. I do feel the model as a 3d and I feel like I have more success if I do many soft lines (not shown here), after I’ve watched Mike Mattesi’s lesson in line quality, but when I try to simplify to fewer lines, they come out flat. Same, when I try copying Stan’s gesture drawings, I can get them much better, but when I’m on my own, they are meh. Maybe someone will have any ideas or critiques. I guess it will get better after more practice.
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I’ve finished that book before the course too! :) It really helps to build confidence. In the Proko course, as I understand, the approach is more construction-based instead of observation, like in the book. I really find it very balancing and thus motivating. I was a bit at a loss after finishing the book as to what to do next.
Regards materials, I started with using charcoal pencils (B), but they are too sharp and dark and my lines become stiff. So, after watching a video by Mike Mattesi on gesture, I started using a graphite stick which is bluntish in my case, and then added a conte crayon, which is softer than charcoal. I draw with these and then when I study Stan’a examples and correct mine, I use charcoal. I also experiment with charcoal from time to time, learning to use it in a fluid motion and changing between thick and thin lines. Hope this is helpful. Btw I watched that video in materials and handling the tools before starting the course, it was very helpful.
Your explanation really hit it for me as I do have this feeling of modelling/sculpting of a 3d form with soft strokes when I draw. And from here, after “feeling” the form, I can now move towards few lines that would be gesture. It really was not clicking with me when I was trying to draw a gesture from head or whatever random body part, without thinking of force.
