Jenna's Face

     For my first week, I decided to focus on faces. I've drawn faces numerous times before (see below), but it's been a while, so I decided to focus on them again for a week.

     I had no idea who to draw, so I consulted my friends (Ally Dworetsky and Jenna Rollins), and naturally they wanted me to draw them. Originally, I was reluctant, but when I couldn't think of anything else, I decided I would draw Jenna.

     However, before actually drawing a face, I wanted to focus on mouths. I've struggled in the past with drawing mouths, so I found an instructional blog online (see citation at bottom) and practiced. These are the results:

     The first one I did (on the left) wasn't that great, but I felt like I improved more during the second drawing. Then I felt ready to take on the task of drawing one Jenna Rollins.

     It took me about two and a half hours to draw Jenna, and I video-taped the entire thing. I then cut out the most boring parts (such as sketching the outline) and (somehow) got the video down to about seventy minutes. The song that I picked to play in the background is about 3:05, so I had to speed up the video a lot (2300%, actually). (This involved using three different video-editing programs, which made it surprisingly difficult just to speed up video... But this blog is about drawing, not my struggles with frustrating video programs.)

Jenna Drawing Time Lapse from Annie G. on Vimeo.

     And here is the finished product:

     I can't really describe my techniques for drawing other than that I sketch the general shape and then started shading and adding detail. Generally, I start with the eyes, since they give life to the drawing. From there I usually spread from the center out, by working on the nose, then the hair, etc. Hopefully the video sufficiently shows the process.

     I did a little practice on clothing when drawing Jenna's shirt, but I will definitely do much more intensive practice in two weeks (during my clothing-focused week). Next week I will focus on hands.

Citation:

Prokopenko, Stanislav. "How to Draw Lips." Web blog post. Stanislave Prokopenko (Fine Art Painter). July 2009. Web. 24 Feb. 2013.

<http://www.stanprokopenko.com/blog/2009/07/draw-lips/>.

Goals and More

  I've loved drawing my entire life. However, when I was younger, I drew mostly animals, and I had never tried to draw humans until recently. About a year ago, I had to draw a self-portrait for art class, and I found that I really enjoyed drawing humans. I spent time in art class and art club meetings refining this skill, and over the past summer I finally produced a drawing that I was very proud of.

(Nate Ruess)

  However, while I've spent quite a bit of time practicing drawing faces, I've never even tried to draw a realistic full-body person. I believe this is the next step in mastering realistic drawing, and the genius project is a good place for me to work on this.

     For the first week (the week of February 25), I'll focus on drawing human faces. My goal for this week is to draw at least one full face, and also spend some time concentrating on specific facial elements (noses, eyes, and mouths are the most challenging). I plan to visit the library this weekend to find a few books on this subject. I will look online for blogs if I can't find any sufficient books.

     During the second week (the week of March 4), I'll focus on hands. My goal is to perfect hands, and I will do so by drawing various types and sizes of hands. I plan to ultilize drawing books that focus specifically on hands to help me improve at drawing them.

     For the third week (the week of March 11), I will work on clothes. Clothes are (from what I've heard) the most challenging element to draw. They will also probably take a considerable amount of time, since there's such a large range of textures and types of clothing. I plan to use drawing books to try out various styles. I don't have a specific quantitative goal yet, but I want to try drawing at least four different styles of clothing (ex. jeans, t-shirts, etc.).

     My last two weeks (March 18 and March 25) will be spent on my final product. Since my overall goal for this project is to be able to draw a realistic full-body human, I want my end result to show that I have achieved that. I plan to draw a realistic, full-body picture of one of my favorite bands, Walk the Moon. I'll have to combine and apply the techniques I will have worked on for the previous month to create my final drawing. Since there are four members, I'll be able to experiment with different faces, body shapes, and clothing textures. Hopefully through the genius project, I'll be able to refine and perfect my realistic drawing skills.

     So far, I've found one general drawing book, though I plan to find more specific ones when I go to the library this weekend.

     I was able to get Sketching People & Places In All Mediums by Jose M. Parramon. This book covers the basics of the human body as well as tips on sketching, shading, etc. It should provide a good basis for beginning my genius project.