anti-procrastination month!

[eye_of_toad]

So the drawesome prompt for September is to finish a work-in-progress. This is an excellent prompt (if not 100% welcome, because I procrastinate for a reason).

The first thing that came to mind is this heart that I've done three versions of (I'm not including one of them because attempt #2 was pretty similar to attempt #1 just ... worse. I got it into my head to put slightly more realistic eyes on the face and it made it so much creepier.)

The second thing that popped into my head is that I want to finish up sketchbook #11 because I hate it and it's annoying me. So that's a goal of one to two drawings per day to fill it up and get it over with.

And the third thing that popped into my head is that I am overdue for a Jared Padalecki re-draw. A few years back after a gap of years of not really drawing anything, I gave myself the challenge of filling up an entire sketchbook without tearing out any of my drawings. This after a lifetime of ripping up drawings that I hated so I'd never once actually filled a sketchbook. One of the first drawings in that sketchbook was a *hideous* colored-pencil sketch of Jared Padalecki and it took a lot of willpower not to tear it out and throw it away. I'm so glad that I stuck to my vow and saved it because later in the same sketchbook I tried again and it was so much better. And thus I made a tradition of re-drawing that same photo reference once a year or so and it's now been almost two years since the last attempt.

And I now have nine completed sketchbooks that I haven't torn any pages out of. Here's the inside cover of #10. It's about half full and I hope to have more stickers in here by the time it's done.


Anyway, back to the heart drawing... this is another reason I like following art tutorials aimed at little kids. (The other reason is just that they are relaxing.)

Following this tutorial...


...I came up with this...


...which ultimately lead to this...


I'm still not 100% happy with it and want to give it one more go, but this is already so much better than I could have done without the kiddie cartoon practice. Being able to break up a drawing in my mind into a simpler drawing helps so much. (Remember, kids, it's not plagiarism if you label it a "study"!)

Comments

[amberdreams]

Simplifying shapes is really such a good way to start learning about something. It's definitely good practice!

kid stuff

[eye_of_toad]

Yeah, especially complex natural objects (flowers, birds, skulls). So many details are overwhelming and I don't know where to start. But if I just follow along with a kiddie video on the subject and then go back to trying something more realistic, my brain can now sort out the parts.