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HNAutumn β Drapery Study
Published: 2014-05-30 15:00:03 +0000 UTC; Views: 568; Favourites: 21; Downloads: 0
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This is what I can really do when I have enough time and motivation. :/ This was one of my projects from last semester, before I was in that graphic design class.This is why I say most of the work this semester was me being lazy, and this is why this semester was so disappointing on so many levels. -_____-
Chaaaarcoal on reeves bfk, 22 x 30.
Tumblr: hnautumn.tumblr.com/
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Comments: 8
I..... have been staring at this for at lEAST five minutes whoa this is mind boggling how do you even get on that level of detail and smoothnessΒ
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Thank you so much for looking. My word, it was exhausting. I'm pretty sure if you add up all the time I spent on this project it would be daaaaays. I got really obsessive over proving myself for some reason, and I just kept refining and reworking everything.
(But yeah, I always sketch out the entire composition and general values as fast as I can and then spend the rest of the time making everything less broad and more focused. A lot of times I get tired and just stop after I've gotten the forms generally defined. Bleh, bad habit, but I didn't do that this time)
Β The paper quality helped, too. Reeves BFK paper is made of like, cotton I think, and it's really thick . . . it makes for excellent blending . . . I literally used a paper towel. Like, those crummy brown sandpaper things they stock public restrooms with. The only bad thing is that they always have these stamps you have to peel off, and they leave a sticky residue . . . if you look closely in the top right hand corner you can see the square. It's slightly darker.
(This is long. Sorry.)
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That's really amazing, I really admire your dedication!! I took some sketchy (haaaahaaaaa puns but i mean sketchy both ways hehe) art classes a few years ago where I was supposed to practice drawing simple 3d shapes, cloth, and still lifes... and after a few hours I started doodling around the edges and I got chewed out so bad by the teacher for giving up really fast 
Also I actually don't think stopping after just gettin the basic forms of a picture done is a bad habit! Maybe it's just me, but I prefer the raw-er, more spontaneous look to drawings. Sometimes detailing things too much will ruin a picture for me, so I try to stop after juuuust enough pencil strokes cover the main idea of the thing I'm drawing.
Oh and I'm totally going to check out Reeves BFK then, if it's as good as you say! The thickest paper I've ever tried is Stonehenge, it's cotton too, but with expensive paper like that, I tend to be too nervous to draw well with it. So I guess I just need to practice enough to get used to (potentially) wasting good pricey paper. :')
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All the basics are SUPER boring at first, but it's just one of those things. :/ I'd been practicing a lot of the basic drawing techniques for years (like contour drawing and sighting and some basic gesture drawing) before I got to my first college drawing class, and I was soooooo booooored the first few months because it was designed for students who'd never done it before, and we were so limited in what we could do . . . this was like a breath of fresh air. It was one of the first times in that class I actually felt like I was learning something besides how to prepare paper the right way. XD
No, not necessarily, but super clean looking stuff is more popular a lot of the time for some reason. I prefer the sketchy look most of the time myself, but finding where to draw the line can be difficult . . . Also on big drawings like this, it's a lot more noticeable when it's unpolished because there is just so much space! It's like when you blow up a hi-res Photoshop drawing really big that was made to be viewed small . . . Does that sorta make sense?
(Reeves is still kinda expensive . . . haha) Ooh, but if you ever do buy any, something else very helpful I learned: preparing the paper. I don't know if you were ever taught any of this, but I think it's really useful. It makes it a lot easier to start a big charcoal drawing and keep it looking nice.
On the Reeves the border is actually ragged, and it usually runs large in size, so they would always have us take two sheets the same size and place them on a Masonite drawing board (two sheets in case any dirt gets caught underneath; it guarantees smoothness) and then tape down the border with masking tape (the trick to keeping the drawing from tearing later when you remove it is taping your shirt first so that it picks up some fuzzies and looses some of the stickiness). After you do that, you take a stick of charcoal on its side and just scribble (yes!) all over the paper until it's totally shaded in (it shouldn't be pitch black though, that's a waste of charcoal! Just a nice grey is good), and then you just blend it with a paper towel or something until it's smooth. Tada, all ready!
After that I usually do a quick compositional sketch with darker lines, and then erase some basic highlights, and just start refining from there. Charcoal is just a lot easier to work with when the paper isn't totally white.
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I'm glad it's appreciated. ^^
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