There’s a tendency in me that says that if I practice hard enough, I can draw anything I want with ease. I think I need to revise that into: if I practice often enough, I don’t mind doing what takes time and effort. Of course, subject matter matters, a lot.
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The last day of the challenge month I tried to do more than usual. If I go by what “serious” artists claim, drawing for an hour a day isn’t going to bring much improvement in skill. Their aim is every waking moment 😨 I am not that serious, TBH. Maybe that’s my problem.
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When I watch creators kitbashing robots and compare those with hobbyists assembling functional robots, there’s an extreme discrepancy in appeal. Imagined robots look cool, yet are glued stiff. Real robots work, yet have rudimentary designs. I want both cool and functional robots
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The sketches below are of the quality I wasn’t willing to share, since they aren’t finished (rendered). However, getting the shape right is important too, and rendering is overestimated most of the times. I tried to start with simple shapes and elaborate on those.
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This month’s art challenge turned out to be a disappointment. Nevertheless, here’s a dog I drew today. It turns out that every artist needs to develop their own way of sketching. Still, drawing from simple shapes is a good way to draw from memory, instead of copying a photo.
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I like this quote, supposedly by Einstein:

“Weak people revenge. Strong people forgive. Intelligent People Ignore.” ~ Albert Einstein

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My januari drawing challenge seems in a shambles. I’m being too self-critical while creating. Good thing I’m not a professional artist, or I’d starve. It’s too easy to find distractions, like being out of shape, leaking roof, sick cat.

Yesterday I was too tired to draw (or do anything else but rest). Today’s sketches seem so off-model, yet they still resemble somewhat their references. I guess they’re Frankenhorses' severed heads.
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So, it appears that being grateful is largely thanking randomness in the world, or divine intervention if you believe in such things. I believe randomness (read: entropy) is a thing, the other thing, not so much. I can’t thank what happens anyway.

Finished reading: Taking a Bite Out of the Apple by Rob Janoff 📚

A book in a series for young adults. I found the twothirds dealing with the Apple logo interesting. The rest dealt with Rob Janoff’s further carreer. This book is clearly meant for wannabe graphic designers.

To speed things up, I rushed through the tutorial and quickly sketched a portrait of a beautiful cat. Maybe not the best way to learn how to draw, but it is, after all, a challenge.
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I’m not doing tutorials about how to draw animals. Getting far into a drawing and then realizing your anatomy is off, is both frustrating and enlightening, an opportunity to learn something. I need to get better at simplifying what I see, so I can easily correct it early on.
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I suggest you watch The mystery of Michaelsoft Binbows on YouTube. It’s a love letter to niche write-ups on your website of things you love and probably very few others, yet those who do will thank you for it.

I did the bird-in-flight drawing exercise from my art instructional book. The author wrote she based it on a photo, so I guess I should do that as well. Drawing a flying bird from direct observation seems nigh on impossible.
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Although I have little experience with drawing dogs, nor with drawing a long shaggy coat, I’m somewhat pleased with the result. Maybe I should be worried. Am I losing artistic refinement?
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I’m so accustomed to seeing cats and kittens, that I had a hard time accepting the flaws. So I drew stick kittens on top of a printed photo and transfered those onto my drawing as a base. Still seeing those flaws, though 😖 so I skipped the coat markings.
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Currently reading: Taking a Bite Out of the Apple by Rob Janoff 📚

So far, it’s really good, hard to stop reading. So much positive energy!

I’ve sketched dogs before, but only from a photo. To catch up, I didn’t take very much time, so the quality isn’t really there.
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I hadn’t drawn a hedgehog before, and was puzzled by this specimen’s white spines, especially how to draw them. It turns you don’t; you draw the negative space, or, in this case, what’s visible of the black base of each hair. It’s a work in progress.
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I guess I should give up on making the best drawings I can, since that slows me down. OTOH, this sketch resembles a pig, but it very messy, which isn’t making me proud. Then, if only 5% of your creative work makes you proud, you’re top of the line, I’m told.
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