The Horse Forum banner

Will I EVER get better?/My art Journal

8K views 66 replies 25 participants last post by  Saddlebag 
#1 ·
Hi!

I think I am totally rubbish 'cause no one wants to see my drawing but I'll give it one more go.

This is my 2nd attempt at Drawing Lila-a horse that I mucked up while colouring:



Referance:



Other-1st-try:



I would love some tips by the way and please write at least 'Hi' so I know you have looked:-(OK?

Phantom
 
See less See more
3
#2 ·
Don't get down on yourself! Don't have any tips. I can't draw at all, my 5 yr old daughter has more artistic ability than me! Just like anything else, keep at it & practice makes perfect :)
 
#3 ·
Hi phantom,

You will get better. Of course, you will. Anything that you do a lot of you will get better. You must draw a lot! I always recommend to people to draw a ton, and not worry about the finished product. Be prepared to draw and throw away many pictures. You will have 9 failures for every success, at least at first. Speed up! Dont try to "carve" your picture, as if it were stone. Just feel the shape and line and lay those feelings down onto the paper. Quick!, like 1 minute. If it's wrong, start again.

As for drawing from the photo, especially in a difficult perspective such as you have chosen, try using tracing paper for a bit to help you learn how to translate the shapes you see in 3D into lines on a 2D piece of paper.

Do not compare yourself to others who have many more years experience.
 
#8 ·
Hi!

I think I am totally rubbish 'cause no one wants to see my drawing but I'll give it one more go.

I would love some tips by the way and please write at least 'Hi' so I know you have looked:-(OK?

Phantom
The problem with your drawing is you are looking AT the horse not IN the horse.

You are lacking depth perception and just trying to do the outline without looking at the the basic shapes that make up any drawing.
 
#9 ·
You are going to get tons of different advice because everyone has their own style. The best thing you can do is draw and draw and see what works for you. Pick up drawing books and practice from them. Sometimes you can find them cheap on ebay or at garage sales or some libraries carry them or can get them for you.

My initial drawing would look similar to your first one. You have the basic overall shape and proportions going on. That is a good thing because a lot of people can't really *see* the outline and proportions. This is why a lot of art books tell people to use spheres and other basic shapes to start a drawing with. You don't really need too because you have the talent to see it and apply it to paper. You will even get better with proportions the more you draw. I would suggest starting the outline a big lighter so you can change and adjust it easier as your drawing progresses.

Now you need to finish it. Add detail. It takes time and patience to add the detail. Look at the shading and highlights. For example - the eye is never a solid color. Depending on the lighting there may be 2-8 shades that make up the depth of the eye. Shading is what changes a plain 2-D circle into a 3-d sphere. Learning to see those shades and highlights and apply them will be what adds the finishing touch to your drawings.
 
#12 ·
Please post more. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE! Sometimes I sit in my room and spend 4 hours drawing a horse's eyes! If you want to get better you need to practice. If you need to practice you have to draw more and if you are you should have more drawings to post. So, show us your progress!
 
#13 ·
Phantom, whatever you do don't get yourself down, and DONT compare to others.
If you don't mind me asking, roughly how old are you?
Developing drawing skills takes a lot of time and practice. Start by going to absolute basics.
Draw a circle on a piece of paper - now turn it into a sphere by shading. Practice this until you can make your circle look 3D. Shading and tonal work is a very big part of effective and visually pleasing artwork.

When you start drawing horses, as Spyder said, look into the horse, not at the horse. When I do my commission pieces, I spent hours focussing on the horse's eyes and trying to get a feel for the horse's personality. If you get the eyes perfect, the rest will follow.
Maybe try to start drawing as many eyes as you can. Just work on an A3 sheet of paper, and draw eye after eye after eye until you can see an improvement. Use the circle-sphere exercise above, to help you develop tone and realism to the eyes. Observe where the light in coming from in a photograph, and try to mimic that in your drawing.

I also suggest that you practice drawing fur detail. Get onto your computer, pick any old horse and crop it down so that you just have a patch of clear fur, that has light and dark tones in it. Try to draw these views as many times as you can, to get a feel for tonal work and how the light reflects off a horse's coat to create shine.

I think Tiny suggested this as well, but allowing yourself a time limit of 1 or 2 minutes to draw as much as you can is a fantastic way to get a grasp of proportions. You tend to overlook the finer details in your attempt to draw the whole horse in such a short period of time. The more you practice this, you will be surprised to see how much detail and correct proportion you are coming up with.

Hope that's helped you a little, I need to head off and get some of my own commission work done now!
 
#18 ·
I'd go for graphite in the beginning. Graphite gives you a very good idea of how to use tones and shading to create a three-dimensional drawing. To help you even more - edit the photo you use on the computer to make it black and white. This will help show you obvious differences in shading. When you draw it, try to match the tones in the black and white photo.
 
#21 ·
Phantom.

Good sphere. Now, just add a bit more to make it a tiny bit bolder; the dark area darker and the lightest area lighter. Most materials create a bit of shine reflection when light is shined on them. It's the bright spot you see on an apple, for instance. I call it the "shine spot". It is what makes an eye look real. try adding that to the sphere. It will be at the place which is closes to the light source .
 
#24 ·
OK! I asked Marlea to change it to black and white and at the moment am working on this:



BTW: Nowhere near finished.

Would love tips on how to draw PROPER ears!!!:D
LOOK at the ears. Again if you look at the whole horse and not worry if you have the outline you will do better.

This is what I mean. I threw this together in 3 minutes.

 
#26 ·
Drawing in outline like you did just shows that...the outline.

It may give you a area to work in like paint by numbers but it does not actually see the horse.

If you ever get to the library go look up the book..The Agony and the Ecstasy ( not sure if I spelled this right).

It is the story of Michelangelo. The first part tells how he went to the morgue, cut out the innerds of people to understand how the body was made up. He "understood" the WHOLE human being and he knew the structure of the whole being.

Kinda gruesome but fascinating at the same time.
 
#56 ·
If you ever get to the library go look up the book..The Agony and the Ecstasy ( not sure if I spelled this right).

It is the story of Michelangelo. The first part tells how he went to the morgue, cut out the innerds of people to understand how the body was made up. He "understood" the WHOLE human being and he knew the structure of the whole being.

Kinda gruesome but fascinating at the same time.
Thanks to your suggestion, I myself am checking this book out! I hope its good!
 
#28 ·
You have done a fine job of your horse head. You will get better, its a given. When I draw it becomes a bit fragmented, I like to perfect each item one by one. For example I would study the mouth of this particular horse..the details that give it character and proportion and try to perfect it, then move on to the eyes, the ears etc. Wonderful job so far. Keep plugging away.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top