GYSO Drawing Part 1 - Fail Fast

Published: 2019-03-17

Introduction

Tim:
Hello and welcome to Get Your Skills On! This is a blog where two friends work together to learn a skill that they are both interested in. My name is Tim, and my friend Thor (yes that’s his real name) will introduce himself shortly. First, though, I would like to talk about what we are doing.

This blog was made to document the learning process of obtaining new skills. In this case it will be for drawing. My friend and I will both be cooperating to create a new “update” blog post every 2 weeks. Since we started this project on March 3rd 2019 our first post (hopefully!) will be sent out on March 17th.

Our intent is to show the whole learning process. From absolute beginner to competence. Creating something is always fun, but the learning process can sometimes be lonely. This is an attempt to share the joy of learning; all the failures and all the successes.

We decided that we needed a standard measure of improvement, so we came up with a reference picture:

We will regularly try to recreate this picture in a drawing to show any improvement. It was chosen because it does cool things with perspective and has a human figure in the center. The first thing we both did was try to draw this (to hilarious effect). You can see our attempts down below.

There is a bit more to talk about, but I will pass the baton to my friend:

Thor:
So our (first) learning vessel of choice is the acclaimed Drawabox course, freely available. Our choice made partly on fairy dust, partly on glowing reviews. During my first two weeks I’ve been very positive towards the experience, Uncomfortable has so far managed to catch my attention with no more than lines and ellipses.

I wouldn’t call myself a naturally creative person, I’ve just sort of stumbled on the idea of being a musician, so that’s what I’ve been training and studying to do for most of my life. It makes me really excited to take on another creative endeavor, and perhaps gain some new perspective. Though already having gone through many “oh man, I was terrible back then!” phases I’m positively scared pants-less of having to suffer through that again.

What Went Right?

Tim:
One of my favorite things in the Drawabox.com course is the message, “drawing for fun is mandatory”. I take this to heart for any creative thing I do. If you aren’t enjoying yourself than its just homework, and nobody likes homework.

I feel like I did a good job keeping a balance between “homework” and “mandatory fun”. Here are a couple examples of what I drew for fun these last two weeks:

(I thought this was hilarious. Still don’t understand why)

(Just having a little pun!)

Obviously not very high quality drawings, but both of them make me smile and get me excited to try drawing other fun stuff. I also did some smaller doodles that aren’t worth showing here.

I have a confession to make. I have already done some of the Drawabox lessons (gasp!). In the ill fated ambition of my youth (a few years ago) I wanted to learn how to draw, so I tried Drawabox. I got to around the “perspective” exercises before I slowly stopped and than gave up. One of my problems was not doing enough Mandatory Fun.

This means that I have a bit of an advantage in the lesson material over Thor. It’s not significant enough to make a huge difference, so I decided to redo the lesson material from the beginning. Here is an example:

This is the “planes” exercise. It’s basically there to teach you how to precisely draw a straight line. Drawabox ask you to draw on physical paper with a felt tipped fine liner, so some of the lines are a bit wobbly. The lessons say that precision is more important than wobble, which means I have a lot more to iron out. All in all though, I think I did a good job on this exercise.

This lesson was also where I left off before doing some Mandatory Fun.

Whereas I was stumbling on ending points, and suffering from quite a bit of wobble, it gives me hope that just a little more time on the fundamentals will hopefully see a significant boost. Here is my “planes” exercise.

I actually felt motivated to follow through. I was glad to sit down, draw some lines, and connect with that nostalgia of sitting with technical guitar exercises for an hour every day when I was 16.

Writing about ellipses here

What went wrong?

Tim:
*deep breath*

I’m just going to show you my rendition of the reference picture right away, Rip if off like a bandage:

Ascending from the abyssal depth of Tartarus arises this abomination. At if pestilence himself decided that the world was not worthy of simply normal suffering and set out to excrete the most foul visual experience possible. It brings a tear to my eye; not out of sadness or remorse, but out of fear. Fear of what I have created. Fear for the future generations that will have to say, “It all started falling apart when Tim drew the reference picture.”

I lack the vocabulary to even express the disgusting ball of shame in my gut I feel when thinking about this. I don’t even know where to begin considering improvement, except that it already looks like i’ve mastered anti-composition.

If hell exist then this is what will be printed on the one-way train ticket. It is a testament to the arrogance of all mankind that something this repugnant could ever be shared with more than a bonfire. Its like I spat in your face and then told you to keep reading.

That feeling of sleep paralysis. The total helpless helplessness of not being in control and yet being afraid. That is the feeling that this anthemic obscenity concocts with the spiraling vortex of terror in my mind. The thought that my own hands created this…

I want to say that I feel sick, but that would be a lie. You have to already be incurably diseased to even have the capacity to produce something of this caliber. The only thing I have left to do is subject myself to the mercy of the universe. I pray that my punishment will only be temporary.

I’m so sorry.

Thor:
(Week 1) The timing of this project is unfortunate as I am currently in the smack dab middle of this music competition thing. As this blog post airs, the event is starting. Which means that the last two weeks that I’ve been drawing for this project have coincided with the most intensive two weeks of practicing my set for this music project. That’s on top of working full time and taking on a driver’s license. Nonetheless, I have gotten the work done.

I don’t own a fineliner. A ballpoint will have to do for a few more days. In regards to the reference picture, drawing a picture with as much detail as that is nearly impossible, no matter how much time you have at my skill level. If I were to have actually gone through with it, the entire two weeks would be dedicated to just that and I would have seen zero improvement. With that said, I could have probably slumped some of the time I spent on doing the little that I did, and went for a more overall-rendition. There’s not even a face in my rendition! I’m looking forward to redoing the picture. Actually, I’m not, I’m really really scared of doing it again and having to take it more seriously

(Week 2) So after another week, I solved the fineliner issue, it’s solved now. There’s a continual feeling of horridness and emptiness every time I realize that this is going to end up public. Purely practically, every aspect of my drawing technique is not near a stable level. I did not draw for fun. Mainly because I thought it was fun enough to sit back, listen to some music (something I rarely do), and space out for a while drawing planes and ellipses.

What happens next?

Tim:
I think I am going to work more on the Drawabox lessons. I want to get a firm grasp of perspective and other composition guidelines. The quality of my lines and ellipses can be pretty low, as long as they convey what I’m trying to do. They will slowly increase in quality over time. The most important points, I think, will be composition, so I will focus on that. I also won’t be giving up my Mandatory Fun time either, it’s too fun.

All in all I have high hopes for the future of this project.

Thor:
Hey so the beauty is that we’re on this wonderful journey led by Drawabox. There’s not even a remote chance of me trying to see what’s coming next at this level. Except looking at the names of the coming chapters. But I’m too overwhelmed as it is, so this is fine by me.