I agree. I went through that book and then noticed that I can't draw the things I see vividly in my mind, only copy what's in front of me. Then I realized that to sketch from imagination, I need to understand the 3D structure of things, not just how they look from one side. So here's some exercises I'm doing now:
- Drawing a lot of boxes, spheres cut in half, cones, other simple 3D objects in various views
- 30-second poses using Posemaniacs, and quick poses from imagination
- Head structure from imagination, like in Loomis "Drawing the head and hands" (available online for free)
The next problem is going to be color, I can already tell that I'm OK with structure but will need a new set of exercises for color and value, no idea yet what they will be. Can anyone who's further along help me out?
If you are pretty good at drawing already I'd suggest to practice at color drawing for some short time using your intuition and your eyes, and then move on to the serious stuff. I mean color theory. You might find useful Gnomon Workshop tutorials on color theory and Johannes Itten's "The Art of Color". Also, here you inevitably will need guidance in proper usage of your instruments, so find yourself a manual for the technique you use (some book and I find youtube videos on topic pretty useful ofttimes).
I don't know how I learned colour. I worked in black and white for a long, long time, and only started using colour when I started using the computer/scanner.
(If you like maths and physics, check this out: http://www.scratchapixel.com/lessons/3d-basic-lessons/lesson... esp. lessons 1 and 2 it won't help you one bit about choosing the "right" colours for artistic purposes, but it's super interesting and useful for knowing about how colours are made in print and on the screen)
Comments
I agree. I went through that book and then noticed that I can't draw the things I see vividly in my mind, only copy what's in front of me. Then I realized that to sketch from imagination, I need to understand the 3D structure of things, not just how they look from one side. So here's some exercises I'm doing now:
- Drawing a lot of boxes, spheres cut in half, cones, other simple 3D objects in various views
- 30-second poses using Posemaniacs, and quick poses from imagination
- Head structure from imagination, like in Loomis "Drawing the head and hands" (available online for free)
The next problem is going to be color, I can already tell that I'm OK with structure but will need a new set of exercises for color and value, no idea yet what they will be. Can anyone who's further along help me out?
If you are pretty good at drawing already I'd suggest to practice at color drawing for some short time using your intuition and your eyes, and then move on to the serious stuff. I mean color theory. You might find useful Gnomon Workshop tutorials on color theory and Johannes Itten's "The Art of Color". Also, here you inevitably will need guidance in proper usage of your instruments, so find yourself a manual for the technique you use (some book and I find youtube videos on topic pretty useful ofttimes).
Those are great exercises.
I don't know how I learned colour. I worked in black and white for a long, long time, and only started using colour when I started using the computer/scanner.
(If you like maths and physics, check this out: http://www.scratchapixel.com/lessons/3d-basic-lessons/lesson... esp. lessons 1 and 2 it won't help you one bit about choosing the "right" colours for artistic purposes, but it's super interesting and useful for knowing about how colours are made in print and on the screen)
loomis links for the lazy https://archive.org/search.php?query=andrew%20loomis%20AND%2...