(Part 2) Best products from r/ArtCrit

What paper are you using? Arches is great and will hold up to a lot of water/working. You'll also get really nice washes on arches as its a coton paper. If thats out of your price range try strathmore 500, (I really want to emphasize getting the 500 range as the 400, and below are really not good enough for finished pieces. I even practice on 500). Strathmore 500 8x10 is on sale on Amazon right now. Bought some for myself the other day lol https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WFUH2U/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_pvySBbNSNXYKD

Arches is also on sale on amazon right now. Their hot press is really good if you like a flatter less textured paper. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01AML73Y2/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_OsySBbST1ZSWK

I'd lighten your first wash even more. Apply the wash to the surface without working it into the paper. Just let the water sit on top. It will soak in as it dries. It Also looks like the later washes were either applied while the first was still a bit wet, or you tried to blend them in. In that picture of the fox you showed before, the technique was definitely wet on dry. You can use a hair drier on low to speed up the drying process, because getting that first layer really dry is esential to replicating that look.

And I think those little fourishes on the linework of the fox really gives that fox its character.

If this is a gift, or going to be framed, make sure you leave room at the edges for matting. Half inch or more. You can use masking tape to get clean edges, thats what I do. Taping it to the table or flat surface will also help keep it from warping while you paint. Water will really ripple it, especially if its cheap paper. If you get arches it may be a pad which means the pages are glued together on all 4 sides, so you wont have to tape it to the table if you keep it on the pad while you paint.

Don't get discouraged. Watercolor has a steep learning curve and this shows a lot of progress from your last one!

Edit: also make sure you're using soft brushes intended for watercolor. They will help you keep from tearing up your paper.

Just so you know, it's totally ok to literally measure the sizes of the different body parts! You can use your pencil like this to get proportional shapes and correct angles. Since you're a beginner, I would highly recommend trying to draw from life as much as possible. It's really easy to get caught up in the details when working from a photo, while drawing from life helps you focus on the larger shapes and overall pose of the subject. Drawing from contrapposto poses, rather than straight on poses like the model in your picture is standing, is also beneficial to learning more about how the body works and how to portray it on a flat surface. I would also suggest working larger and with charcoal, since it's a lot easier to see what's not quite right when working large and charcoal is a lot more forgiving than graphite. Just buy a set of large, cheap newsprint paper and some vine charcoal and you're good to go. Good luck!

>in terms of perspective and proportion, is this where it's important to study anatomy? I know figure drawing and anatomy is something art students study, is that the reason why?

Absolutely, constructing forms and figures in perspective benefit immensely from understanding the bones and muscles underneath. It also lets you play with design more, exaggerating areas while keeping it natural looking. I wouldn't say it's as important if it's just for a single illustration though.

>Also, how do you practise art?? Sometimes I struggle to focus on one thing long enough to actually know what skill I'm practising.

That's tough to answer, for it depends on your goals and style you want to achieve. Deliberate practice is the best way I've found to practice to improve though. The easiest definition I could find was:
> Deliberate practice is intentional, aimed at improving performance, designed for your current skill level, combined with immediate feedback and repetitious.

However, there's a great book on the subject that I highly recommend. Because from personal experience, this book alone taught me how to practice effectively.

Hope this helps, good luck on your artistic journey

here's my real critique if you want it: You should try studying life drawing for a while. This drawing isn't successful, for too many reasons to get into, but that's ok. Just draw something every day.

Also go to the museum or wikipedia your favorite artists, learn about them, study their careers. DRAW EVERY DAY. Take in as much about art as you can, be open to ideas in art you think are bad. I see all the time people look at Pollock and go 'thats not art, i could do that' without trying to get it at all.

that last bit has very little to do with you, except in that I think it'd help you a lot to study as much as you can and DRAW EVERY DAY.

There is this awesome book called Drawing on the right side of the brain. It's helped millions learn to draw in proportion and perspective.

http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201

Then there's an art appreciation book called Move Closer. It's my favorite art theory book.

http://www.amazon.com/Move-Closer-Intimate-Philosophy-Art/dp/0374527822/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369903747&sr=1-2&keywords=Move+Closer


Good luck and have fun.


Edit: just looked at your submission history, you know how to draw, u just trollin.

Glad to be of help!

I appreciate the embracing of mistakes and not laying everything out beforehand. I would encourage finding something similar but that is capable of creating blacker blacks than a ballpoint. Something like more traditional pen and india ink or some nice art markers, I have this set of Copic markers that I really like.

https://www.amazon.com/Copic-Multiliner-Sp-Set-4-Black/dp/B006MO2BVO/ref=pd_bxgy_201_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=VFHMWHX86Q6CF6JT1PJ5

They're really excellent for a first time! Blocks of color is actually good, in my opinion. The cool thing about oil painting is placing different colors next to one another to get an effect. Blending is okay for certain things, but in my opinion it gets boring and you lose the magic. And also, yes, over-mixing can cause all your colors to turn into mud, which should be avoided. The best way to do this is to mix your colors before you start painting. So figure out what colors you think you'll need, and mix a light version and a dark version of them. This way you'll know what you're working with before you start and you'll know which colors to put where. It's a huge simplifier and makes the process go much more smoothly. The best book I ever read that explained oil painting is called Hawthorne on Painting and it explains the process of painting much better than I can.

This is really cool! This is such essential work that will make your paintings so much better.

Here are some thoughts as I look at it:

The sky is too dark. The sky will normally be your lightest light and this one is a few shades too dark. It's almost the same value as the object in the foreground, but really should be very light sky - object a shade or two darker. You have the darkest dark in the same place I would put it, under the porch. I would actually even go darker on the back wall there.

I really like the scene because I like cityscapes a lot. One problem you are going to have here is that you don't have a very strong light source and it's hard to tell which part is in light and which part is in shadow. Because of that you are left to rely on local color for your values which can confuse things.

Take that back wall for example. I see the lighter color at the top of the wall, and I see the area where the light is hitting it. The lighter color is still in shadow, so it should be darker than the place the light hits, even though the local color is lighter.

You're not wrong and it's clear you put a lot of work and careful observation into this. Just, the value pattern can also be thought of as a light vs shadow pattern and there's not a lot of LIGHT in the photograph and that will give you problems in the value study.

here are a couple posts by stapleton kearns about value and color

http://stapletonkearns.blogspot.com/2010/07/value-color-thingy.html

http://stapletonkearns.blogspot.com/2013/10/confounding-color-and-value-in-landscape.html

edit: this book has great info on values in the landscape including how you have to compress your values because the sky is SO DAMN LIGHT it doesn't really leave a lot of room in the scale, I try to read this book about once a year because I get a little more out of it every time https://www.amazon.com/Carlsons-Guide-Landscape-Painting-Instruction-ebook/dp/B00DGBMGCA

I've tried a few brands of gouache and they're mostly all the same but some have different things about them.

Winsor & Newton are what I started with.

Holbein have a huge selection of color's and some are very vibrant.

M. Graham They use honey instead of gum arabic, I feel like these paints are thicker out of the tube, sometimes other brands are more watery.

Holbein Acryla This is acrylic gouache, very similar to regular gouache except it's not re workable after it dries, feels like gouache but not some of it's idiosyncrasies like mixing with the layer of paint underneath, this one has it's uses but you might want to use other brands with this one.

Control looks good! Is it variety you're looking for? You might need more brushes. Check out this image for an idea of what the different shaped brushes do.

If you want an awesome round brush that makes marks similar the first brush in the image, just with a super fine tip to make super fine lines and broader strokes Loew Cornell Series 7020 brushes are a must-have according to the watercolorists I know... Edited to add that the size 8 or 10 is usually what they get.

The hair has a pattern and texture that reminds me of wood. Instead of drawing out the strands, try focusing more on the hair as a whole...? I'm not quite sure how to explain so I just found a quick video instead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKw7CzL8EP8

Also invest in a white gel pen. My friends use the Sakura Gelly Roll https://www.amazon.com/Sakura-37488-3-Piece-Blister-Medium/dp/B0077RHJSK and I also like to use it for drawing a few shiny strands of hair, but I otherwise personally prefer Uniball since it's more opaque. I say this because I feel like this piece would pop out better with contrast if you had colored in the background with a lot of black. It would give the stars more shine, and I think the roots would look good in white against black. Contrast is very eye catching.

your perspective is off. pick up Perspective! for Comic Book Artists by David Chelsea. its really a shame he titled it what he did because millions of artists probably gloss over it thinking "bah, comic books! that's not what i do." but clearly it is what you do. so get it.

i have read a dozen books on perspective and this book is far and away the best. there are concepts it doesn't totally cover, and there are more advanced books for that. in terms of getting the idea across and learning there is no better book in my experience. and it has a lot of premade grids in the back to get you started.

As far as visual story telling there's nothing there. It's all just character studies. I'm a huge comics nerd and the medium is so unique and powerful but people think it's simple when it's anything but if you really want to do something with it. Check out this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-The-Invisible-Art/dp/006097625X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331962588&sr=1-1

It's probably at your local library if it's worth its salt. And read some great comics. Check out stuff by Top Shelf Publishing. I've talked with their publisher before and he really gets comics.


As far as the characters themselves go I think other people made the points I would make but here's another book recommendation.

http://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Figure-Drawing-Burne-Hogarth/dp/0823015777

This can't be considered "finished" by the realism standards, you should consider filling the contours with pencil, even if lightly, and if you still have your reference, try to look a little more at it, see how light and shadow behave on its surface.
Realism/drawing from life is mainly observation, would be great if you read some books on the subject. keys to drawing and drawing on the right side of the brain are a good place to start. They may help you learn how to hold the pencil correctly, measure effectively, also may show the basics of light and shadow, and perspective.

I love Jeno Barcsay's Anatomy for the Artist as a general anatomy resource. I just got Andrew Loomis' Drawing the Head and Hands and love it so far!

Again, this is something that will improve with practice. You have to train yourself to see and interpret the underlying structure rather than the symbols of body parts, if that makes sense.

You've made a beginner's mistake in assuming that dark = black. It is the other way around. Black is a dark color but it is only one of many. Many beginners use black to induce shadow (and produce light), but in earnest black and white are less useful for the final color composition. For some classical reference: On Divers Arts (amazon link), provides a very interesting set of instructions on the painting of flesh tones from 1122. Still, you likely won't get the best instructions from a 900 year old manual. Color (amazon link) is a great (really great) introduction to color theory.

As for composition, it mostly works in my opinion though I might suggest that the leaf under the eye on the right distracts from the eye itself. Furthermore, the clarity of the leaves and eyes causes the abstract shapes cutting through the painting to be called into question by their unspecific nature. Thereby, there are elements within the painting that are extremely specific and others that do not have purpose past compositional fixes. These 'edges' appear as though chrome and serve to transition and conjoin the disjointed elements within your piece and I might add have a flair for the surreal. I can only suggest that this comes off more as an ends to a means rather than as careful and pointed. Take the 'transition' away and your problem still remains, see what I mean?

Regards,
D