Attended my 1st Portrait Day! :-)

March 7th, 2010

I’ve never been so excited and alive for a long long time! :)

At the beginning of this week, for some reason, my hand felt cramped and stiff, and I dreaded drawing for the 1st time. After Wed, it got much better.

Click on drawings to see large size:

The usual stuff:



Below are my attempts at constructional drawing. You can see the perspective compared to the photo is wrong to begin with! If you have any crits, pls let me know:


And portraits from photos below. Trying to accurately draw angles are one of the toughest thing in art:


Below drawing has no likeness! After I finished it, then I realized some angles (lips etc.) ain’t correct:

The Organisation of Illustrators Council Singapore had 2 Portrait Day this weekend and I attended both.

This event is basically a mass portrait drawing session, whereby participants (posers etc.) sit on the couch / chair, and all the artists sits in a semi-circle fashion and draw. Each portrait lasts 20 mins, and after you’re done, you clip your drawing to the hanger and if the poser likes it and buys it, you get SG$10 for it.

The distance between poser and artist is approx 4 – 8+ feet away depending where you sit, though you can get closer still, but I didn’t dare to try that:

And I had an eye-opener when I saw some of the works by the guys there. I think most of these drawings are expressive in nature (illustrations) and stylized. They are all very beautiful, and I hope to draw like them someday….maybe in 50 years, I hope. :D

Click images to see larger size:













My own drawings were complete garbage, but seriously, I’ve really tried my best to observe and draw what I see. I treated the event like an academic drawing, but LOL…mine were the worst of the lot. Here:

I dunno how to draw the 2 kids who moved non-stop. I dunno how to draw anything that moves! Like the dog.



Profile drawing. I think your 2-year old kid can do better than this:


The left drawing of the lady reminds me of John Singer Sargent’s Madame X. LOL! :D

The lady below moved her head every 2 seconds, and I got tried to join different poses together and a chimera results:

The next portrait day will be held next month, so in the meantime, I’ll continue to study the books I’ve, draw from still life and photos, train myself in line confidence and ACCURACY (this is the hardest), and also gonna start copying from Bridgeman’s anatomy drawings. :)

As usual, if you guys have crits or feedback, let me know. I’ve gotten mentally stronger since my last burn-out and I lust for negative feedback so that I can improve.

Good day,
Xeon :)

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Suddenly had an urge

March 2nd, 2010

I suddenly had an urge to post the following picture (edited the words on the banner via Photoshop). The quote came from a member from ConceptArt.org (his ID is Baron Impossible). Whenever I feel depressed or hopeless about my art, I CHANT these words out aloud and I feel like a real man with real strength afterwards:

Till then!
Xeon :)

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Need to train accuracy before I proceed further

February 28th, 2010

Hola! Well, nothing much for this week, except that I missed my 2nd portrait day due to my own carelessness and dumbness (I thought I didn’t register for the event even though I did!), but this coming portrait day (7 Mar), I should be going. Maybe fate doesn’t want me to go to portrait day. :D

Anyway, these few days, I’ve been very depressed by my own in-accuracy in art. I’ve tried to draw what I see but the thing doesn’t come out like the subject. Meaning, this curve turns this way and blends that way, but my curve is off. I wish my hand can accurately draw what my eye sees; it’s not so much the problem of drawing what I see.

I also did some drawings from photos as practice (scroll to bottom).

Click on images to see larger un-distorted size:













As some folks suggest that I try drawing from photos to improve accuracy and see where I went wrong, I tried it.
Below are my results. Pls gimme your absolutely HONEST & constructive crits! :)
I’ve even put the photos next to the drawing for easy comparison.

Click images to see accurate undistorted sizes:







Below are faces I drew from magazines. Despite trying my very best to draw accurately on the contour etc, there IS NO LIKENESS. Any advice or crits on this?

While it may encourage me, I don’t wanna hear stuff like “You’ve improve!” or “You’re on your way to becoming Rembrandt!”, or “You’re the true descendant of Monsieur Ingres!” LOL :D
For a man to succeed, he must hear nothing but jeers, taunts, scoldings, insults, beatings, harsh words and so on.

I’m feeling a bit dizzy now, and need to rest! Had too many late nights. I wish I was a god; that way, I don’t need to waste time sleeping. :D

My personal quote for the day?
“Real men don’t give up art. No matter how much they suck.”

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WET

February 21st, 2010

I’ve updated various sections of this blog to complement the Chinese New Year:

1) Banner has been updated and now looks cooler? :)
2) New pages added on the right, such as “Art books”, “Inspirational / badass quotes” and “Useful links”. Check them out!

Anyway, I just got this game called “WET” from a guy. It was a used copy, and so far, the game seems quite fun, though aiming is very hard due to the target icon being so tiny:

The thing is, sometimes I’m thinking of selling my xBox 360 console to get PS3, because Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 is now on the PS3 exclusively and NG2 / xBox 360 is trash compared to that.
I played it on my cousin’s console and it was fun as hell.

I haven’t played video games for ages but now, there’s so much new irresistible games out there and I just have to play. For only about 1 – 2 hours a week at most. Art is still more important to me. :)

Anyway, at ConceptArt.org, this member (Armando) told me there’s no need to find new subjects to draw, because I haven’t truly Drawn the ones I already have. Meaning, subject isn’t that important, but accuracy of the drawing is. You can be drawing ten different subjects everyday but if all of them are in-accurate, what’s the point? :) I’m gonna emphasize more on accuracy now.

Below are my drawings for the past 2 weeks. Click images to see undistorted version:








I’ve started playing with my new black ballpoint pen to do 15-second continuous-line-non-stopping sketches of my mannequin as warm-ups. One of my mannequin’s arm broke, which is why the sketches at the bottom has only 1 arm. :D


















The desk pendulum clock again. For some reason, I can’t draw this one well this time. Maybe it’s cos’ I had a bad day. I’m gonna try it again this week. One of the hardest shit in my home to draw due to confusing curves and intricate details:









The window grills look curvy, LOL! 4-point curvilinear perspective? No, it’s because I can’t draw straight lines and I try not to use rulers (“real artists don’t use rulers“).

The first drawing below is kinda wrong in perspective (based on the subject) and especially proportion, so I did a 2nd one down below:

I’ll be getting this chair early next month: http://www.everywherechair.com/tlt-spch.html

With that chair, I can draw better in outdoors now! :)
For some reason, I just can’t draw standing up.

The 2 books, Perspective Drawing Handbook by D’ Amelio and Drawing Essentials by Deborah Rockman has arrived. Both are very detailed and concise, and if I had read these 2 6 months ago, no way would I be able to understand most of it. These 2 books are pretty advanced compared to the ones I’ve read so far.

Anyway, I’m gonna take the next few months to finish these 2 books, and with hard work, I hope to get just a bit more better than what I am now! :)
I realized only recently that I suck at drawing ellipses, and I totally suck at drawing curves.

This Sat and Sun, I’ll be going for some outdoor drawing, including portrait drawing. My portraits are gonna turn out like trash, but it’s always good to try.

Till then! :D
Xeon

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Happy Chinese New Year!

February 8th, 2010

I’m (very) probably not gonna update my blog next week, since it is Chinese New Year.

I’ve got my Plustek OpticPro A3 scanner, finally.
It costs SG$950 (approx US$668).
Expensive as fuck and there goes my month’s salary. :(
Here’s some pics (click to see full size):

However, it’s very worth the money. Regardless of A5, A4, A3 in grayscale / PDF / color in 100 – 300 DPI, it scans them all in exactly 8 seconds.
I’ve yet to try color scanning in 1600 DPI, but the specs says 8.5 seconds, and I’m not surprised. :D

Organisation of Illustrators Council (OIC) – Portrait Day : 6th Feb 2010
There was a portrait drawing session organized by the Organisation of Illustrators Council (OIC), a local sketch group. I was late by 1 hour and there were no seats left when I reached there.
I MUST change my punctuality attitude. It is very bad and I’m always late. It was a pity – everyone was drawing and all. I did hang around a bit to see some of the drawings by others, and a couple of it were really good.

A fellow CA member here went there too, and he uses purely pen (no pencil) to draw the full figure + face without any re-statements. It was perfect. The line confidence was the best I’ve seen so far and I think of Matisse’s line power when I saw that work. It was out of this world. In the portrait day next month, I’ll bring my camera and take pics and post them here. I can’t even draw a decent portrait to save my life.

Fort Canning
I went to Fort Canning on Sunday to draw some of the stuff there.
This is the most historical part of Singapore with many parts of it dating back to the 13 – 14th century. It’s a very tranquil place compared to many parts of Singapore.

Here are some pics (click on images to see full size):

Below text are shot from the info panels at Fort Canning:






And below are my sketches at Fort Canning:








Trashy? You bet. All these drawings are done on my A5 sketchbook, and this sketchbook is going to end up in my trash bin sooner or later.

I realize that I have problems drawing small and I don’t want to draw small. Thanks to those folks at CA like DPaint and JeffX who insists to always draw large. I really feel like buying A2 paper sometimes. Sigh. :D

With the souls of the dead artists as my witnesses, I vow to always draw on A3 or larger for my outdoor sketches. I drew on A5 previously to reduce attention from passer-bys, but I don’t care now. Quality of sketches is more important. I must endure the torture of unwanted attention and curious looks.

And below are the sketches of still life which I did last week on A3:







Below 3 drawings are my new couch. The 1st ended up horribly, the 2nd is better but still wrong, and I redo and that was the 3rd:










Below is a drawing of my living room’s new glass table. Full of curves and hard to draw as hell due to wrong approach (focused too much on details of the curves at the beginning). I had to re-draw 2 times before I got satisfied:

The couch from another vantage point:

I can never draw a realistic self-portrait. I’ve drawn the eyes and nose and face shape EXACTLY as I see them but the result has only a bit of likeness. It looks like a 7-year old’s work. I guess the line of the bottom part of the face went haywire when I tried to darken it using 6B pencil. It wasn’t like this at first:









Sketch of wooden Eiffel Tower model in extreme perspective (tower laid flat pointing towards me):
The 2nd one is a better one, but still doesn’t look real:



The hand sketch below is based on a pose by a fellow CA member here….can’t remember his name. :D Hands + many pens:


Plustek OpticPro A3 scanner:

xBox 360 controller in extreme perspective:



After finishing this, I realized pendulum at the bottom is wrong! Should be an ellipse:

Below are some sketches drawn from a live model in a session last month (the ones you see here are 10 – 20 mins poses….the 30 seconds type is too much for me).

The male model was wearing blue boxers, not nude. :D
I drew these by eye, so if you’ve any comments on proportion or has feedback, let me know so I can do better next time. I didn’t see anyone use sighting, so I didn’t use either. :(
I’ll use sighting next time. :)

Click pics to see full version:






Where am I headed now?

Well, I realized only yesterday that it is impossible (at least for me) to wholly perfect my life drawings. Meaning, no matter how hard you try, you’ll find that the drawing / sketches can be further improved. Just like gesture drawings….you can do them your entire life and still find there’s lots of room for improvement. So, I think it’s time for me to move on.

After I’ve finished studying the Perspective Drawing Handbook by D’ Amelio, I’ll move on to studying the construction method of drawing, followed by gesture drawing. Then, I’ll very likely move on to intensive portrait drawing, followed by figure drawing. I feel like learning from Vilppu’s method.

My drawings needs lots of polishing, as you can see from all these shit posted above. Art is harder than hell, but well, at least it’s fun.

That’s all! Happy Chinese New Year and herald the Year of the Tiger! :D
Xeon

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A3 drawings are up!

February 1st, 2010

First of all, I’m not happy with how the A3 scanning of my drawings turned out. The service was bad, but the scan quality was worse. I told the guy to scan in 200 DPI grayscale but it seems their machine don’t have grayscale, so it became black-white scans. Lots of the details, line quality and halftones were all lose. Result? The drawings become hard-edge black-white drawings.

Worse yet, my drawings now have greyish zebra-like stripes horizontally across them. Fortunately, these stripes ain’t so dark, so it doesn’t show up in the scanned images.

This is my 1st time I’m getting people to scan for me, and also the last time (other places that do A3 scanning are charging a freaking US$8 per piece / grayscale). I’ve decided to get this Plustek OpticPro A320 scanner. It costs a bomb over here in my country (almost a thousand bucks), but it will be way cheaper in the long run, and I’ll have more control over quality too.

Below are the drawings which I’ve done the previous 2 months or so (in un-sorted order). Bear with me; the black-white shit isn’t pleasing to look at (click on images to see un-distorted size):





















































Below is the pagoda in the Chinese Garden I was talking about some time ago. A couple of months ago, I went to draw it again, and although it’s no Rembrandt, at least I managed to get the thing out. It was overwhelming with details and I’ve already skipped like 80% of the details, otherwise it’s too hard to draw! :D




















Below is a sketch near the Singapore River. I believe this bridge is called Governance Bridge or something. Compared to most bridges here, it does look like something from a fantasy game with all those spiky drawbridges. :D Unfortunately, as you can see, the perspective of the 2 columns is all wrong. I should have corrected it before darkening the lines:



Below is a sculpture drawing from the Asian Civilization Museum. The sculpture’s head is bigger than the body, so I drew it as such. Next to that is a black straw vest. The actual one looks very cool like some battle armor:



Below is another drawing from the Asian Civilization Musuem. This type of ship is called “twakang” if I’m not wrong. Our Chinese forefathers came to Singapore from China via this sort of ship several centuries ago:

Freehand perspective of a corner of my living room:



That’s all, I guess. I went to a figure drawing event organized by a local sketch group here, and am gonna post those trash after I’ve got my scanner, together with my more recent drawings.

I’m gonna go back to reading my Perspective for Comic Book artists tonight. Meanwhile, I’ve also revved-up my schedule and I’ll be drawing 2 hours from Mon – Fri, in addition to the usual schedule on weekends.

I find that if I don’t draw from Mon – Fri, my standard of drawing plummets to a total low and it’s hard to get back up. To be honest, I nearly fell back to Square One during the past 2 weeks when I didn’t draw at all. Line was shaky, huge fears in me, no confidence…scary as fuck. Thank god it’s all good now. :D

As a side note, I don’t see myself improving at all, though. I’m kinda stuck at the same level as I was a couple of months ago!

My graphic design course….aye. I don’t wanna talk about it except that I totally regret going there. That $$$ could be better spent on more useful things, like a basic western art course at NAFA. Come to think of it, I think if I had a choice, I would prefer to burn that S$5000 away as an offering to the gods than to spend on that school.

Chinese New Year is coming!

Good day,
Xeon

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Art is most important!

January 18th, 2010

It’s been a hellish week. The workload just gets heavier and heavier, with considerably less time to draw, and the school projects are starting to bog me down completely.

That said, I’ve pretty much cut off all video gaming altogether since a couple of months ago to maximize my time.

I’ve also signed up for an event or two with a local sketch group to have the chance to draw still people in different poses etc. :D

I now have about 112 A3 papers awaiting scanning. I found the guy (a religious man) and he is now scanning the shit for me. Should take some time before I post them up here.

Last Saturday, I went to the BodyWorks exhibition at the Singapore Science Center. For serious figurative artists, this is Paradise. You will probably learn a lot here than from all the figurative books you have read. More than 10 human corpses on display, with their muscle fibres all intact, exposed and shown in various dramatic poses, including exposes organs in some of the displays. They also have a couple of life-size real human skeletons for you to study, as well as a huge giraffe corpse and giant squids too.

I’m not a figurative artist or anything, but it was a challenge trying to draw those things, so I went for the overall contour or pose, if you call it.

These displays are harder to draw than living humans, because their muscles and flesh are all exposes and the details are highly distracting.
Of course, top dogs won’t have problems drawing these.

The admission fee is expensive, but I’m gonna go there twice per month as a drawing challenge. The exhibit ends in March. :(
Bad thing, though, is that no photos are allowed, but sketching is.

Below are my sketches. Some of the Egyptian mummy ones are from the sketching outing to the National Museum of Singapore, where they had an ancient Egyptian exhibition. Some of the rooms were too dark for me to see my own sketchbook. :D

Below are done on my A5 sketchbook. Click on images to see actual versions:

I deliberately exaggerated the nose of the 2nd mummy below (the female one), as I’ve always like girls with beautiful large slightly-oversized noses. :D

Extreme perspective can be seen below. I’ve always like to draw such extremes as it poses a big challenge:




Below are stuff from the BodyWorks exhibition:


The text below is quoted from a panel in the exhibition.
It reads, “Nobody grows old by living a number of years. Years may wrinkle the skin, to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul”.









I’m very ashamed to be using symbols in the 2nd sketch below (the basketballer). The arm (the one not holding the ball) is in a very foreshortened view and I was tired so I just rough it in. :D



I would have probably fared somewhat better if I had drawn on A3….maybe. :)

Anyway, hope my workload eases in the upcoming weeks, or I’m gonna….

Art and drawing is more important to me now than anything else.
I can give up my job but not my journey to become good at drawing.

My “Perspective! for Comic Book Artists” is coming next week.
And maybe in my next post, I’ll post a picture of my easel which I got last week, but which I kinda gave up after 1 week of using it (it’s just insanely HARD).

See you! :D
Xeon

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Happy New Year 2010!

January 6th, 2010

Happy New Year 2010!
(I know, this post is late :D )

No, I’m not dead yet, but buried with work. It sucks, as usual.
A pen, or a pencil for that matter, is not used for writing numerical figures etc…it’s for drawing.

Not just work, but my graphic design classes has a fair bit of homework too and I’m rushing them so that I can finish everything fast and continue with my drawing practice.

For the past week or so, I went to the Singapore Botanical Gardens, as well as trying to find interesting shit to draw.
Sadly, nothing caught my eye and I didn’t have the motivation for it. The Botanical Gardens is a place choked full with all kinds of plants and all, so if you’re doing landscape sketching, this is THE SHIT, but I’m not at that stage yet.

I also went to the Singapore National Library to draw too, by looking out of its windows and sketching the city scene outside (it’s a tall building with gigantic, clear windows). Sketched a couple of church domes, as well as a head cast of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles.
This is the 1st time I drew from a plaster cast, so I was scared as fuck, but I went ahead anyway. The result sucked.

More importantly, I’m having increasing difficulties drawing while holding the A3 drawing board, so I’m getting an “easel” soon.
Not an actual easel, but a music stand (the ones music conductors use to put their musical notes in a concert).
This is the one I’ll be getting:

http://www.musicstandsalone.com/product/PK-SMS-50

Better than an easel cos’ it’s lightweight and much more leaner.
If it fails me, then I’ll get an easel. :D

Its been 1+ months and I haven’t uploaded any drawings. They’re accumulating in my room, but thankfully!
I found a shop which scans A3 drawings for me at a pretty cheap price! Praise the Heavens! :D

I believe maybe somewhere before end of this month, I’ll be able to upload my drawings again.
The only thing is that the shop looks a bit like a terrorist outfit in Iraq. :D

I’m still at Norling’s book now, and will be some time before I’m done with that, then I’m gonna breeze through Perspective! for Comic Book artists, then I’ll move on to more advanced perspective books.

These few weeks, I guess I’ll be drawing indoors till my music stand arrives, then I’ll go out to draw again. Drawing in public on an A3 board tucked into your tummy produces total trash (lines go haywire, things go crooked, hand can’t move properly etc.) At least for me.

And it’s NOT a nice day today, cos’ I’m stuck in my office (I call it Hell) doing boring shit work. It’s a sunny windy day today, and on such days, you should be drawing beautiful stuff in public, not stuck at work.

Last but not least, I’ve found this local organization called Organization of Illustrators Council : http://organisationofillustratorscouncil.blogspot.com

I’ll be going to their museum sketching outing this Saturday. Hopefully everything turns out well. :D
In Feb, I’ll attend their 5-hour portrait drawing session in. Well, pretty much everyone there are art elites, prodigies and professionals, but if you seriously wanna improve, this is the way to go.
Lose your ego, your pride, and learn from the best. I can’t wait for Feb to arrive, though! :D

Hola,
Xeon

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Merry Christmas!

December 24th, 2009

Today is Christmas! I exchanged gifts yesterday with my colleagues and had a “potluck” party with my classmates at my graphic design class. The thing is, everyone attended the party including the lecturer and we didn’t had any lesson.

Bad? U bet. Waste of time and money, but well, once in a while, it’s ok. We did some “creative playing”, like seeing what everyone can do with a simple object, then some goofy poses to get everyone into the creative mindset. All these sure beats SITTING DOWN AT SOME FUCKING DESK STARING AT SICKENING PAPERS WITH NOTHING BUT ACCOUNTING DIGITS AND NUMERICAL FIGURES PAGE AFTER PAGE.

Oh, I did learn some “important lessons” like cohesion and socializing, because I’ve always been a quiet-loving type of guy.
I mean, if I had a choice, I would rather go fishing than playing football. If I had to choose between watching movies with friends and watching movies by myself, I would choose the latter. :D I dunno, I hate noises and disturbance most of the time.

Anyway, I went to the Chinese Garden to sketch last week, and managed to draw out a simple basic pagoda at least. The sun was hot as fuck and I was sweating like a pig.
Another thing I learnt about life drawing in public is: you need to have insane stamina and physical endurance. I have weak stamina, so I was tired as fuck after standing and drawing for a while. 2 hours later, I was so thirsty I could barely walk. Next time I’ll bring my water bottle along.

My next public sketching place would probably be the Singapore Botanical Gardens. Seems that there’s a lot of small structures there to draw.

Tomorrow, my “Perspective Made Easy” book should arrived. After that, I’m gonna go into gesture drawing, and then learn shading from there. Then after that, I might go into portraiture? :D

I can’t scan any drawings yet…the Mustek A3 scanner can’t be shipped to Singapore so I’m finding alternative ways to get this shit.
SCREW THIS ALL!

Next week, I’m gonna get owned by my boss. Not my fault, though. My colleague left and now my workload has doubled. It’s killing me. Hopefully, after I get my graphic design cert next year, I can leave this shit job and at least get a job in the creative industry. Even if the pay is low as fuck, I don’t mind. I just don’t wanna stare at sickening Excel spreadsheets with numerical figures. *shudders*

Anyway, so long for now!

Good day! :D
Xeon

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Down with flu

December 19th, 2009

I’m down with flu as I’m typing this.

Work has been very busy recently and I find it near impossible to draw nowadays during work, unlike in the past. I wanna quit but well, times are still bad and the amt of jobs are still pathetic.

My workload has doubled, my work now requires me to run in and out, to-and-fro places, look at even more insane spreadsheets choked full with nothing but FIGURES, FIGURES and FIGURES. The salary is still the same old shit.

By figures, I don’t mean human figures, which are beautiful to look at, but numerical figures. Those truly SUCK HARD. I don’t understand how anyone want to choose a career in accountancy, but numerical figures and spreadsheets are the most hideous trash in the world. Fuck them hard, I say. Screw them.

If there’s anything in this world that’s cramping my mind and drawing, it’s shit like these. Even the doodles of a 1-year old baby looks way more appealing than those trash.

Next week, I’ve 2 consecutive night classes in graphic design and have to attend my cousin’s wedding on the 3rd night. However, 25 Dec 09 is a public holiday (Christmas), so I’ll have that day + Sat and Sun to draw real hard to make up for not having much time to draw this week.

There’s a huge insatiable lust in me to draw but my time is taken up by nothing but work. I’ve always been thinking how great it would be if I could just quit my job and draw everyday, read art books, watch art vids, meet art folks for 16 hours every day per every week per every month : 24 / 7 / 365.

Tomorrow is Sunday. I hope my flu gets better tomorrow so that I can draw for 8+ hours!

It’s not a nice day today. The weather is rainy and chilly and cold.

That’s all for now!

See you! :)
Xeon

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