franl155 said on 2012/03/01 at 7:08 am
I love drawing, or trying to - I don't think I have much talent for it, but I've done a couple of pencil drawings that surprised me, and made me want to do more.
The problem is - how to see the model so that one can then draw it?
I want to learn to draw people - faces, bodies, poses, in action … but I think that most models would object to being looked at through a telescope! Especially as it's human *bodies* that I want to learn, not their clothing.
I did try going to an art class at a "wrinkly" social club - once. I told her that I wanted to learn to draw people, and also that I was severely visually impaired. She gave me a sheet of paper - it had about twenty egg-shaped faces, different expressions, looking in different directions, and told me to copy those. They were about an inch tall and photocopied; I could hardly see them! And when I brought them really close to my eyes they broke up into photocopied fuzziness.
In fact, the only thing that I could see well enough to draw was my own left hand, becaused that was all that I could bring right up to my eyes - and spending nearly an hour drawing my hand, time after time after time, proved to be of limited entertainment value. I couldn't even vary it by holding the pencil in my left hand so I could draw my right hand.
I'm the only model I have to hand, but trying to draw even a profile is impossible; I bought a webcam with the idea of trying to put the camera in different places so that I could try drawing something that didn't involve me looking directly at the camera all the time - not got it set up yet.
And how to capture "action" poses, with the sense of movement and life ...
franl155 said on 01/03/2012 at 7:08 am
Thanks, ArtGeek, it helped! Sorry not to answer sooner; I'd sort of given up checking the forum every day, as nothing had happened for over a month.
I don't have an "I" anything - *s* I'm a bit of a techno-dodo, apart from not wanting to jump on the latest bandwagon (whatever it might be).
I've got a webcam, got to get it set up, then I can take photos of myself - and short vids of moves, so I can pick the frame that has the "action" that I'm after.
I've been stealing pics from all over the internet - photos and sketches, so that I could study them and try to copy them till I learn how to do my own, but zooming in on those often just breaks them up into confusing blurs.
I have done a couple of good drawings, so I can do it when I'm in the mood or when I can tap into that part of my brain, but that doesn't happen very often! Of course, the more I tried, the better I'd be, so there's an answer.
I must dig out the "models" I've been collecting; they need sorting and filing, if nothing else; and I hope that'll start me wanting to practice.
And sorting out my bedroom, I've finally unearthed my craft table; now all I need to do is to find the boxes of sketchpads, paints, pencils and the rest of the stuff I've got - somewhere!
Jadine said on 23/02/2012 at 5:34 pm
Hi there! I had a similair problem a few years ago when I first joined secondary school.
I really love doing the same thing with figures and portraits too.
I have stigmatism and nystagmus so I take photos of the object with my iPad or iPod Touch, so I'm able to study the photo and zoom right into it, without staring about a cm away from whatever I'm sketching.
Go section by section, don't worry about doing loads of basic lining all over the page and all that. That's way to tricky for me personally and gives me headaches.
Also don't be afraid to 'etch' your sketches. Because of my nystagmus I tend to take my pencil off the paper every half a second. Makes it much easier and you can go back and rub it off later.
Being able to zoom in digitally is so much better than having a 2D picture or 3D model.
If you don't have an Apple iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch I definitely recommend you get one. Life is soooooo much easier with it!
:) hope I helped :)