Day 15: Week 3 Summary

I tied up the last lesson in Mark Kistler's "You Can Draw in 30 Days"on Thursday.  Which actually works out nicely since it gives me the weekend to break in the next book.  As a closing note of sorts, I really enjoyed this book as an introduction to drawing though it ended on a bit of a let down.

The final three chapters had a big jump in difficulty.  You go straight from channeling your inner tween to write 3d characters in Lesson 27 to drawing the human face, eye, and hands.  If you've taken a shot at learning anatomy before you already know how crazy hard these are to do well.  I would have expected more lessons to be dedicated to anatomy in general or for the topic to be saved for another book.

Lesson 25 was another drill on cubes in two point perspective.I got the general idea, but not to thrilled about drawing another box.

Lesson 26 was more fun with cubes in one point perspective.

Lesson 27 was just weird.  I admit that it was harder to do letters in two point perspective than I would have guessed, but it wasn't a skill that crossed my mind when I decided to start studying art again.  Lesson 28 is where the book goes from beginner to a level 300 course.  No instruction in anatomy = god awful heads.

Lesson 29 covered eyes and the final lesson was hands.  I've put some time into drawing eyes before, so they turned out better than my heads.  Drawing hands is still super difficult because I have a hard time imagining where the fingers are going and I'm weak on foreshortening.

New book, new exercises.  Value shading and chiaroscuro were introduced in the first couple of pages of Mark and Mary Willenbrink's "Drawing for the Absolute Beginner" which makes me really glad I decided to run through more than one beginner book.  I'll be writing more about this book on Monday when I've had a chance to cover more of the material.

---

Metrics

Pages Read This Week	88
Total Pages Read Since Launch	148
Books Completed Since Launch	2
Total Tutorial Run-time	2 hours 3 minutes
Days Since Launch	15
- Active Days (1 hour or more of practice)	15
Drawing Time This Week	7 hour 10 minutes
Drawing Time Total	15 hour 37 minutes

* I'm considering Friday to be the end of the week for tracking metrics so that it lines up with my summary posts.

Day 13: Tutorials by Sycra Yasin

Sycra hosts one of my favorite YouTube channels and has some of the most interesting lessons I've seen.  The tutorials he posts are helpful, but it's the in depth analysis that he does that made me a subscriber.  They can run long and that might not be great for everyone, but if you have the spare time check out these videos as an introduction:

How to Practice Drawing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKFfSl-EBfI

Iterative Drawing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0ufz75UvHs

His video on iterative drawing was a real gut punch for me.  Especially when he talked about drawing heads in the hundreds as being on the low end of the scale.  The example he used of drawing 20 rough heads per day would have you at the 1,000 marker in less than two months.  At this point in my drawing career I've probably only drawn a few dozen heads tops.  After watching the whole hour long video I was hyped up and ready to work it into my own daily routine.  The only problem is that the exercise would take an hour or more for me to complete at my current level.

So for now I'm going to stick to the basics and keeping refining the fundamental skills.  I will be incorporating the iterative approach into the exercises that it suits.  Like the lesson I'm working on today sketching the human eye.  Taking an iterative approach to improving the same eye feels more rewarding than just doing a bunch of random sketches that could turn out to be a mixed bag of good and bad.

If you like what you've seen, you can find more at his official home page over at www.sycra.net.

Day 11: Dirk Manning's "Write or Wrong"

Quick Overview

Level:	All Levels
Tone:	Casual, Blog-like
Pages:	216
Published:	2012
Arbitrary Rating:	5/5
Plan to Reread:	Yes

---

My opinion:

Dirk Manning's "Write or Wrong" was the main influence that pushed me from just thinking about making comics to actually trying to make comics.  I picked up so much from this book that I originally planned to use it for my first review but I didn't want to start a blog about drawing by talking about writing.  That being said, learning how to write is an important part of writing comics so I've tried to collect good references for plot development and scripting.

The bulk of "Write or Wrong" is a collection of columns written by Dirk Manning for www.Newsarama.com.  The casual style used made it easy to read through each chapter without feeling like a research project.  A plus for me is that I didn't need a dictionary or industry lexicon to understand this book since each chapter was written to be easy to follow.  Instead of taking an instructional approach, the author provides some examples of the successes and failures he's experienced.

Two pieces of advice that Dirk gave really hit home for me.  The first was his suggestion that aspiring artists be patient and take the time to hone their skill in private.  Sure, taking the "learn by doing" approach can help you pick up a lot.  What would teach you to make a comic faster than making a comic?  The problem is that people will start to associate your name with that developmental phase and that image can be hard to shake when you finally reach a professional level.

The other major theme I picked up was that you don't have to be a one-man show.  Even if you can't draw, you can write.  If you're not talented with laying down lines you can still ink or color.  I have hundreds of comics with the contributors clearly printed on the cover page but for some reason that didn't click until I read this book.  Knowing that there are different paths to creating a comic makes it feel doable and believing that something is within reach can give a huge boost to motivation.

Day 8: Week 2 Summary

Alright, the first full week is down and I haven't missed any of my daily goals.  So far I've worked my way through lesson 24 of Mark Kistler's "You Can Draw in 30 Days".  Going at this rate I'll be wrapping this book up before next week's summary.

Here's are some of the exercises I completed this week.

To be honest, I felt kind bored doing another lesson on rippling flags.  There's still room for improvement here, so I'll be drawing a lot more flippy flappy things in the future.

Pyramids were way harder than cubes and cylinders for me.  I try to scribble them down here and there for practice but most of them look wobbly.

Drawing trees without a reference was fun.  I'd like to do a study on trees when I have free time between books so I can come up with more realistic looking ones.

One point perspective room, one point perspective city, Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

Laying the lines for the 1/2 point perspective drills was time consuming.  I need a lot more practice here if I want to put out more than a sketch or two an hour.

After wrapping up Kistler's book I will be moving on to something more challenging.  I snagged a copy of Betty Edwards first edition of "The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Workbook: Guided Practice in the Five Basic Skills of Drawing" in a garage sell years ago.  It's pretty exciting to finally be working through it.

Metrics

Pages Read This Week	48
Total Pages Read Since Launch	60
Books Completed Since Launch	0
Days Since Launch	8
- Active Days (1 hour or more of practice)	8
Drawing Time This Week	7 hour 22 minutes
Drawing Time Total	8 hour 27 minutes

* I'm considering Friday to be the end of the week for tracking metrics so that it lines up with my summary posts.

Day 6: Tutorials by Ahmed Aldoori

When I first stumbled on Ahmed Aldoori's YouTube channel I had never heard of him or seen his work before.  I was just binge watching random tutorials and the video he posted on "How I got into Art - Y'know " popped up in my recommended viewing feed.

I have to admit that a few years ago this video would have left me discouraged about my own possibilities.  I mean, here is another artist who started drawing when he was very young, attended art school, and maintained a passion to improve his art throughout his life.  This is a common origin story for many of my favorite artists and it brings me down sometimes because there is no way to emulate it later in life.

It was different for me the second time around.  Listening to Ahmed talk openly about his struggle with unsatisfying schools and under qualified teachers made me feel more motivated.  If he was able to develop even a fraction of his ability through self-education, then that is an example I can try to follow.

If you have a couple of minutes to spare, I highly recommend checking out the following quick tips to see if you might want to subscribe to his channel.

Drawing Figures and Poses QUICK TIP #1

QUICKTIP - Focal points and composition

Once I clear the fundamentals of drawing like perception, symmetry, and shading I plan to burn through his videos to jump start my anatomy and digital skill sets.

Day 4: Mark Kistler's "You Can Draw in 30 Days"

Quick Overview

Level:	Beginner
Tone:	Chipper, Self-help
Pages:	256
Published:	2011
Arbitrary Rating:	4/5
Plan to Reread:	No

---

My opinion:

Part of my grand plan for successfully learning to draw is to swallow my pride, start at the lowest possible level and work my way up.  I chose Mark Kistler's "You Can Draw in 30 Days: The Fun, Easy Way to Learn to Draw in One Month or Less" because it's targeted at young children and adults with no experience in drawing.  It doesn't hurt that I got it virtually for free by cashing in Bing reward points.

If you are interested in reading this book, I would recommend watching some of Mark's videos on his YouTube channel here.  You'll get that same upbeat, "anyone can learn to draw" feel from reading the book.

Each lesson focuses on a fundamental concept like drawing a sphere or cube with the necessary shading to give it a 3D look.  The instructions are brief and each lesson comes with plenty of step-by-step examples to walk you through the exercise.  I'd love to say that my skill set was too advanced to benefit from reading this book, but I have picked up and improved on several techniques in the last few lessons

The only drawback for me is that the book leaves a lot up to the reader.  You have one exercise to complete per lesson and a suggested bonus challenge at the end.  After that you're on your own to come up with some way to draw that three hundredth sphere without losing interest.

Note: Please take the arbitrary rating for what it is, since a book that is good for me at my current level might not be good for me two months from now.  On the flip side, a book that is way over my head today could be an amazing resource down the line.  I'd be happy to answer any questions that weren't covered by my review.

Day 1: Week 1 Summary

It's officially go time. Let's do this!

I realized a few months back that the first post would be a weekly summary, so I've been doing some warm up drills using Mark Kistler's 2011 edition of "You Can Draw in 30 Days: The Fun, Easy Way to Learn to Draw in One Month or Less".  I'll do a review of the first half of the book on Monday, but for now I'll stick to a quick overview of what accomplished this week.

• Lesson 1: Draw a circle
• Lesson 2: Draw two circles
• Lesson 3: Draw lots of circles

• Lesson 4: Draw a cube
• Lesson 5: Draw a hollow cube
• Lesson 6: Draw cubes on top of other cubes

The lessons start to get more advanced about two weeks into the book when it starts to cover perspective and the use of contour lines.

Metrics

Pages Read This Week	12
Total Pages Read Since Launch	12
Books Completed Since Launch	0
Days Since Launch	1
- Active Days (1 hour or more of practice)	1
Drawing Time This Week	1 hour 5 minutes
Drawing Time Total	1 hour 5 minutes

* I'm considering Friday to be the end of the week for tracking metrics so that it lines up with my summary posts.