Will Westons online drawing class

[chrisaakins]

@Aleksey I have always drawn traditionally first and I almost cannot understand how people sketch digitally. The freedom of movement you get by using a pencil on paper is so much better than a pen on a tablet. But you can't beat all the things you can do digitally like undo and erase and layering. I was relieved to find out that many artists still draw first and then scan in their drawings to finish them digitally.

Your sketching and anatomy is looking really nice. Reminds me of DaVinci's style with the hands.

[ArtofAleksey]

@chrisaakins i think it’s because of that fear around making a mistake that you cant “fix” and digital art reinforced that fear for me more to the point where I had a tough time even with thumbnails traditionally. And I think that really impacted my art later on in the developmental stages and further in the refined stages.

[chrisaakins]

@Aleksey I get that a lot from my high school students. They get paralyzed by the prospect of messing up. I try to teach them to embrace the mistakes and go with whatever happens. I do that by doing a lot of messy mixed media assignments that force them to loosen up. Also, I let them know if they just can't live with the flaw then just start over.

It's a hard lesson to learn. For me, it was the frustration that I could not draw realism perfectly that paralyzed me into not drawing for fifteen years. I walked away from art feeling like a failure. It wasn't until as an adult an art teacher told me that if she wanted a perfect likeness of an object, she'd just take a photo. I realized then that all the mess-ups and flaws are what make art unique and give it that character that now photographers are trying to replicate with Photoshop. Funny, huh?

[ArtofAleksey]

@chrisaakins yeah totally. Will Weston makes you do line exercises and warm ups in a sketchbook before you draw anything you wanna keep, as you’re constructing it.

And the way he holds the pencil makes it really fun to do i feel extra fancy. Once i do the exercises ill post them on here.

[burvantill]

@Aleksey I have discovered this same phenomenon just this week. Undo is my kryptonite. I was sketching my inktober digitally and doing so much digitally made it hard to sketch on paper. I had no confidence. I just told my husband today that I DO NOT want an iPad Pro for Xmas. Lol..... yet

[ArtofAleksey]

@burvantill haha i completely understand.
I made a list of assignments im gonna undertake with pencil and paper as well as a list of pencil exercises

Ill take a photo of it tonight

[ArtofAleksey]

So ive been struggling getting my art to somewhere im happy with and I’m finally starting to feel like im on the right path

I tried sending my portfolio to a few people and it seems like im not what they’re looking for so im going to focus on making my art good for me so I can do my own stuff!

Will Weston apparently does these with his actual drawing students in different classes

Im going to do all these assignments throughout 2020 (unless someone finally hires me for something!)

Heres the list of HW assignments and how to do them:

1. 300 heads assignment
   -find a 2d animated movie you like (typically disney movie) pause the movie and draw the characters heads.
   -try to focus on construction and shape of the head and also the expression, pay attention to the subtleties
   -Tarzan and The Princess and the Frog is on netflix, Hercules is on Hulu

2. 100 hands assignment
   -same procedure as 1 just the hands, pay attention to the emotion being communicated at that moment in the scene
   -can do hands from other artists doesnt have to be movies, can be favorite graphic novel, whatever just as long the hands are expressive

3. People fighting
   -find photographs of fighting (martial arts, boxing, mma, judo) and focus on the action and reaction
   -do 15 drawings a week for 3 weeks
   -focus on gesture
   -play around with long lines
   -do as many time as you like

4. Whispering expression exercise
   -draw one person whispering into the ear of another person NO DIALOGUE in drawing
   -draw expressions on each persons face that may convey what kind of thing is being whispered
   -do 5 different drawing change the expressions in each
   -observe the message the image is sending

5. 5 women looking at a phone
   -Draw 1 of them holding a phone
   -dont show whats ok the phone, focus on the expressions for each person
   -make some expressions the same some different to give us a sense of what each person might be thinking or what they’re looking at
   -again NO DIALOGUE

6. Reptile Assignment (im very excited to do this one)
   -draw a copy of a reptile from a photo
   -put that photo away and do 3 more versions of the reptile from your copy but exaggerate different features and shapes of that reptile
   -do as many Reptiles as you want

7. Bird or fish assignment
   -same as reptile but with birds or fish

8. 40 hair styles assignment
   -get a reference of a hair style
   -30 modern (mix it up) and 10 historical

9. 600 black and white composition studies
   -watch a black and white film and pause the movie and draw the composition in shapes and values,

• dont over do the drawing just keep it simple, get the values in place and focus on the place of the characters, the foreground midground and background

10. Master copies
    -similar to the lee white style assignment
    -find an artist who’s work influences you (im going to pick moebius)
    -steal how they do their drawings
    -Create a composition and try to finish it in the style of the artist
    -do 3-5 artists

[burvantill]

@Aleksey these are great!! Thanks for sharing.
I’m interested in the mma one. For multiple reasons

[ArtofAleksey]

@burvantill you can also punch someone and go DONT MOVE I NEED TO DRAW THIS. Just as useful

[ArtofAleksey]

My notes from the composition class including the pencil exercises! @chrisaakins

[burvantill]

@Aleksey

[chrisaakins]

@Aleksey Wow. I love this. This sounds like a class I would love to take. A lot of my composition skills come intuitively or from a few limited lessons. I loved all the detailed explanations that you are getting, especially the "why" behind things. Thank you for sharing.

[ArtofAleksey]

@chrisaakins i suffer when i try to do composition because i dont know how to do basic construction. Im better at it know im gonna try to hit up the metropolitan museum of art and do some studies.