mydrawingexpedition-blog

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Day 14: (One Point) Perspective. 

Things get smaller as they get further away. Lines meet each other in one vanishing point on the horizon and create the illusion of space. Fascinating stuff!

#mydrawingexpedition #learn to draw #draw #drawing #art #artist #inspiration #inspire #one point perspective #pencil drawing #sketch #sketchbook #drawing exercise #drawing everyday

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Day 13: (Urban) Sketching.

I thought I could give this a try because a watched a few videos that inspired me, just to see where my level is. So I grabbed pen and paper, went to a park nearby and drew this little playground. As always, lot of room for improvement.

#mydrawingexpedition #learn to draw #draw #drawing #art #artist #inspire #inspiration #sketch #sketchbook #pencil drawing #drawing exercise #drawing everyday

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Day 12: Manga Eyes.

My motivation was on a low so I drew a few manga eyes and called it a day. Such days are just unavoidable. Let‘s start the week fresh and focused tomorrow.

#mydrawingexpedition #learn to draw #draw #drawing #art #artist #pencil drawing #drawing exercise #drawing everyday #manga #manga eyes #manga drawing

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Day 11: Cartoon Drawing. 

„I didn‘t do it. Nobody saw me do it. You can’t prove anything!“ 

Well, ok, I confess. These are my drawings. Being one of my all time favorite TV shows, I thought it would be fun to try to draw the characters of “The Simpsons.“ The results are improvable but it was fun nevertheless.

#mydrawingexpedition #learn to draw #draw #drawing #art #artist #inspire #inspiration #sketch #sketchbook #cartoon #cartoon drawing #the simpsons #simpsons #drawing exercise #drawing everyday

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Day 10: Potential Gestures. 

It‘s exactly what you would expect. You anticipate what the person it going to do next and you draw the next gesture in the sequence. For you there is obviously no difference between these drawings and the normal gesture drawings.

#mydrawingexpedition #learn to draw #draw #drawing #art #artist #inspiration #inspire #gesture #gesture drawing #pencil drawing #drawing exercise #drawing everyday

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Day 9: The Routine Continues.

For the fun stuff I tried out to draw a few manga eyes. I like that there are so so many relatively easy to draw variations. Ideal for practice! The cross contour drawings seem to get better. Well at least for my drawing level. Let‘s see what’s possible in a few month from now!

#mydrawingexpedition #learn to draw #draw #drawing #art #artist #inspire #inspiration #pencil drawing #contour drawing #cross contour drawing #drawing exercise #drawing everyday

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Day 8: Basic Exercises, Cross Contour Drawing & Cartoon Drawing

I thought that rice fields could be a good source for a drawing exercise and so thats what I used today for practicing dexterity and eye-hand-coordination. Then I continued to with a cross contour drawing which will need a lot of work in the future as you can see and to round it off, a cute little happy puppy. 

#mydrawingexpedition #learn to draw #draw #drawing #art #artist #inspire #inspiration #sketch #sketchbook #drawing exercise #drawing everyday

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Day 7: Cartoon Drawings. 

I decided to split my drawing routine into three sections: 

1. Basic exercises: Drawing lines and shapes like in my post yesterday or on Day 4. 

2. New and challenging drawings: object drawings and cross contour drawings like on Day 5. 

3. Fun stuff: Things I see in tutorials or books that I want to copy like the character drawing yesterday or comic drawings like today. I feel that this will keep me motivated and boost my drawing confidence.

#mydrawingexpedition #learn to draw #draw #drawing #art #artist #inspire #inspiration #sketch #sketchbook #drawing exercise #drawing everyday

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Day 6: Dexterity & Character Drawing. 

Besides the gesture and contour drawings I continued to focus on basic exercises. Tracing shapes and stuff like that. Then I redid a character drawing based off a tutorial I saw. It doesn‘t look like the original drawing but it was a good confidence & motivation booster nonetheless. It‘s amazing what you can create out of basic shapes.

#mydrawingexpedition #learn to draw #draw #drawing #art #artist #inspire #inspiration #sketch #sketchbook #drawing exercise #drawing everyday

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Day 5: Cross Contour Drawing. 

Well, this didn‘t work out as it should. I get that you draw the lines that seem to move along an object but the execution is as so often another story. Maybe I should put more work in my lines & shapes first.

#mydrawingexpedition #learn to draw #draw #drawing #pencil drawing #art #artist #creative #inspire #inspiration #cross contour drawing #contour #contour drawing #sketch #sketchbook #drawing exercise #drawing everyday

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Day 4: The Fundamentals. 

I watched some tutorials today and picked a few exercises that I liked the most. The basic exercises included: straight lines, curved lines, circles, hatching, cross hatching and tracing objects. As you can see I experimented a little bit with shading too. One key learning was that the more I focused to get the drawing right, the worse it got. So relaxing and not trying to get it perfect made the drawings way better. Who would have thought ... 😅

#mydrawingexpedition #learn to draw #draw #drawing #drawing exercise #artist #art #inspire #inspiration #sketch #sketchbook #pencil drawing #drawing everyday

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Day 3

75 quick gesture drawings & 2 contour drawings. 

As recommended I did the contour drawings with my non-dominant hand to slow me down. It was definitely an interesting experience although I am a bit overwhelmed right now. Nevertheless I trust in the process and hope that the uncertainties will vanish in the future. I am planning to do some basic line drawing exercises tomorrow. My fundamentals clearly need work.

#mydrawingexpedition #learn to draw #draw #drawing #artist #art #creative #inspire #inspiration #sketch #sketchbook #gesture #gesture drawing #contour #contour drawing #blind contour drawing #pencil drawing

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“The Art Spirit“ by Robert Henri is a book I would recommend to every artist to read. Beautifully written and truly inspiring.

#mydrawingexpedition #art #artist #creative #inspiration #inspire #quote

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Day 2: Gesture Drawing. 

75 drawings. 

Rapidly and without taking your pencil of the paper you don’t draw so much the object itself rather its movement. As Nicolaides puts it: "You should draw not what the thing looks like, not even what it is, but what it is doing. Gesture has no precise edges, no forms. The forms are in the act of changing. Gesture is movement in space.“ I chose (ballet) dancers, tennis players and football players as models.

#mydrawingexpedition #learn to draw #draw #drawing #artist #art #creative #inspire #inspiration #sketch #sketchbook #gesture #gesture drawing #pencil drawing

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Kimon Nicolaides - The Natural Way to Draw (1941)

#mydrawingexpedition #learn to draw #draw #drawing #art #artist #creative #inspire #inspiration #quote #mistakes

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Day 1: Blind Contour Drawing.

Five drawings - A female model, a guitar, a shoe, a pair of headphones & two sunflowers. 

You don’t look at your paper while drawing just at the object you are trying to draw. The result isn’t important, it’s the process of doing it and the experience itself that counts. It‘s definitely fun, although I struggled to draw the recommended 30 minutes per object. My eyes were always faster than my pencil.

#mydrawingexpedition #learn to draw #draw #drawing #artist #art #creative #inspire #inspiration #sketch #sketchbook #contour drawing #blind contour drawing #pencil drawing

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It’s never too late to learn something, right? Right! I always wanted to learn how to draw. I loved it in my childhood but as life progressed I started to neglect it because I thought I wasn’t good at it. Probably like many others. Now I’m 28 and haven’t really drawn for almost two decades but the urge to draw, to create and my love and my passion for art came back, impossible to suppress. I am determined to teach myself to draw and I will document my progress here.

So, where do I start my expedition? Well, after some some research I stumbled upon “The Natural Way To Draw” by Kimon Nicolaides and decided to give it a shot. I will probably add some basic exercises and work on the fundamentals of drawing. Lines, basic shapes & forms, shading, perspective and so on. Feel free to join me on my journey!

#mydrawingexpedition #learn to draw #draw #drawing #artist #art #creative #inspiration #sketch #sketchbook