Shaded Victorian dress

I don't think this one is as good as the linear one, myself. The hands are a bit better, and my hair was really wild that day, but in my efforts to get the jacket the right size, I've exaggerated it. There's also something wrong with the face I can't quite get. I might try this again sometime.

In a Victorian dress

In my spare time, I make Victorian dresses and outlandish hats - I'm putting together a little gallery of them on another blog - hopefully I'll have the more recent additions up and can link to it soon. Now, this drawing is a linear version, and although mostly it's ok - the sleeves are very wide in real life, but the body of the jacket itself is probably a little larger - the hands are this picture's major flaw. I tried it again and coloured it (-ish, it is a black and white dress anyway), spending more time on the hands.

Hands in a mirror three

This one, being in the most simple pose, would probably work the best if I could get the shadows to look right. I don't think there was anything wrong with it when I did it, but they should look further apart at the wrist and round the base of the thumb - that would probably make it more believable.

Hands in a mirror two

This one is probably the most confusing. I tried adding some extra lines here, but it didn't quite work.

Hands in a mirror one

For these three pictures, I got out a smaller mirror, put it down on the table and rested my hand on it in different poses. I used the same shading technique as usual, like the last 'feet in a mirror' drawing. They're not bad, but looking back, I wonder if I should have given them more context by adding an outline of the mirror. Maybe next time.

More feet in a mirror

This one's closer and a lot busier than my other 'feet in a mirror' drawing. I used grey pencils and blended them with white to try and make the shadows more even. Of course, they're not exactly symmetrical, because the one on the left was tilted up slightly more, but that's deliberate - they'd look rather artificial if I tried to make them match exactly.

Face in a mirror

I like this mirror - I think I got it from a fairtrade gift shop - it's handmade from roughly equal bits of mirror, so it's not that uniform when you really see it. All the better for me in the drawing stakes though!

Sketch with a hat

Oh, and this hat really exists too! I made it the weekend before last and hair-gripped it on at the front for a more fun drawing. I should put up a picture of it for comparison later.

Sketch sitting (not good!)

Another thing I fear is that when people see my drawings, they'll think they worse than they are, because they don't think my hair is that big. That day I'd been in a bit of a hurry and brushed my hair up into a mass of frizz - it was quite fun to draw though.

Sketch with jacket detail

I have a tendency to give one of the features of my face a really laboured look every time I draw it. This time it was the turn of my unfortunate eyebrows - I used a different, finer pencil, without realising it was also much darker!
If you ignore them, though, it's ok. the pose looks a little odd, but I had to keep moving my right hand back from the pad to try and keep my fingers in the right place in my mind!

Face sketch

Just a little sketch I did in the mirror.

Charcoal and rubber experiment

This one is a little better - I coloured it in the same way before going over the highlighted areas with my putty rubber. I'll keep going, trying to make the shading more gradual.

Charcoal Experiment

This one was just an experiment, and I think the main lesson learnt from it was that my charcoal does not blend like I expected it to. It's more stripey than smooth.

A couple of quick notes on an experiment - 2/2

Some more hands from the book.

A couple of quick notes on an experiment - 1/2

No, I didn't draw this one. In an effort to give the hands more texture, I turned to this picture from one of my anatomy books. I gave it a go, which didn't quite work out. I think these ones have more defined outlines, so I'll keep working on it...

Hand with a pencil

This one is the best of the three hands. Although in texture, they're all looking a bit featureless, the shadows are nicer in this one.

Another hand

This one is a bit better, but the shadows on the hand and arm themselves aren't deep enough. The position of the lamp needed changing to do this properly.

Slightly blurry hand...

For some reason - it might be too light - This picture doesn't come out too well in photos. Just as well though, because this is not my best hand drawing.

Feet in a mirror

Trying to make them more interesting, I got a circular mirror, stood it up and put my feet on a box in front of it. Originally, I was going to have my feet straight up so that I could draw the soles reflected too, but I thought I'd have a go at this first and see how long it took before I tried that - like drawing my toes outstretched before, I think it might be more tricky.

Slightly differently posed feet

This one is a lot more relaxed, and works better. Neither of them are great though... They just don't have the right 3-D effect they should have.

Linear drawings - first post - trying to get shadows right...

Doing some drawings of people towards my next assignment now. I sat on my bed and tried to draw my feet a couple of times. This one doesn't work as well as it should've done, because I thought I'd spread out my toes to draw them better, but had to keep taking a break - hurts the bottom of your feet after a while!