Rat Creature ([info]ratcreature) wrote,
@ 2007-09-02 01:35:00
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Entry tags:drawing, drawing: meta, questions

drawing comms?
So, I always have this vague resolution that I should get back to daily drawing. I used to draw something almost every day once, not necessarily anything elaborate, sometimes just a doodle, but still -- then at some point that I don't even recall anymore I apparently turned into an inert sloth about that too (rather than just being a sloth with non-fun stuff).

Anyway, because of my chronic sloth-like condition my resolutions to draw more regularly never seem to work out so well, so I've been wondering whether there were any fandom communities for art to encourage daily drawing, like maybe with prompts or something? I think I've seen such comms for writing exercises? I just thought some more incentive or supportive framework or something like that might be useful to get back into the habit of doodling, or worth a try at least. Does anyone on my f-list know of such communities?


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[info]gnatkip
2007-09-02 02:25 am UTC (link)
I'd like to draw every day, too. The only way I'm going to improve is by practicing. I just... don't.

I saw [info]multidraw come across my flist a while ago, but I don't know anything about it other than it's weekly. Then I googled, and found the Random Art Prompt Generator. "Capture a sense of accomplishment with primary colors. Theme: camera obscura."

Maybe someone else knows something; I'd be interested also.

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[info]ratcreature
2007-09-02 07:45 am UTC (link)
I looked at [info]multidraw, but it excludes original art, which isn't great for just practicing, also the prompts seem to kind of suck. I mean, the latest prompt is "Any and all book fandoms! Character portraits, canon scenes, whatever.", the ones before that "minor characters", and "television".

I'm starting to wonder though whether just general prompts are really that helpful. I mean, if it was just about that I could just take fanart100 table or any other prompt list out there and try to do a drawing a day. The problem is that I don't really want to do a drawing prompted by "brown" or "middle" or whatever. And it's not that I don't have ideas for art, I have a whole list of fanart ideas I want to do eventually, the real problem is that I'm not practiced enough to make drawing my ideas effortless fun, so any elaborate thing goes like this:

I have a cool idea, I do some thumbnail doodling, realize that I have no idea how to draw that movement or expression or perspective or whatever, I get stuck with the half-finished stick figure that pointed out to me that I fail at drawing a foreshortenend hand for example which I'd need to make that drawing work. I get frustrated and get back to reading some fanfic instead. Some time later I gather my resolve and browse through drawing books to get a clue how to fix my problem or do a bunch of google image searches and browsing through books in the hope of finding some reference I could use, try again, fail again, get discouraged, do something else, rinse and repeat. Which kind of explains why I only post fanart every couple of months.

I think what I really need to get back into drawing would something that works somewhat like a classroom setting with drawing exercises, though not necessarily as formal. Like, the last time I managed to practice regularly was when I met weekly with a group of others at my university who also liked to draw for fun without being art students, and we drew and practiced together. I'm guess I'm looking for the online equivalent. We'd meet, and posed for each other in different positions (with he clothes on though, heh *g*) or pick some chapter from a drawing book that explained something and practiced that, that kind of thing. There was no formal commitment or anything making drawing stressful homework because it wasn't an art class, and you theoretically you could just not draw or skip coming, but it still really worked as incentive.

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[info]gnatkip
2007-09-02 08:59 pm UTC (link)
"I get stuck with the half-finished stick figure that pointed out to me that I fail at drawing a foreshortenend hand for example"

Hahaha, that is so me.

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[info]ratcreature
2007-09-02 09:09 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, it's really kind of pathetic. I once counted how many pages I used to get one simple crouched figure vaguely right for a post where I rambled about the progress of a drawing, and then was too embarrassed to post the real number and faked it down by only counting those that made some kind of progress, and it was still pathetic. My last attempt where I'm stuck is a piece of Roy Harper fanart whom I wanted to draw curled up showing him when he was a junkie, and I have like a folder full of google image searches showing wrecked drug addicts, another still lacking folder of images showing the interior of abandoned houses where squatters might be, and so far at least six pages of me trying to draw someone curled up like he is in my mind, and it is all just made of fail. A single scene. That I first planned to draw like over two years ago. *headdesk^infinity*

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[info]gnatkip
2007-09-02 09:14 pm UTC (link)
Hee! :D Awww! I feel your pain, I do.

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[info]ratcreature
2007-09-02 09:21 pm UTC (link)
It's at least a small consolation that I'm not alone with that kind of thing.

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[info]ratcreature
2007-09-02 09:32 am UTC (link)
I've been thinking some more about this, and maybe if a few others are interested creating a community for practicing together would work. I mean, I have a bunch of drawing books with exercise suggestions, and also just things I want to practice, but I rarely stick with doing these alone, and I bet other artists also have a pile of both, so what if we collected these for the community and then once a week there'd be a mod post with say five drawing exercise suggestions for different "craft aspects" and artists could pick and choose one or more to do over the week, and over time this way there would also accumulate a backlog of drawing exercises by topic as a resource. The themes could be things like anatomy, portraits, making humans look diverse (you know, not just drawing anatomy mannequin bodies when you draw from imagination rather than life), perspective, drawing emotions, different media, animals, landscapes, light and shadow, whatever, but a mix each week and not too constraining, maybe sometimes with links to online tutorials and stuff on specific topics, or page scans from the drawing books an exercise came from. And the community would be open to both fandom and original stuff, and to any level of elaborteness and skill or style, that is you could do just a quick doodle, or "real" drawings, whatever you feel like and fits the execise. It would be a bit of work initially to collect practice suggestions and put them online, but otoh it could work as incentive and be fun for people who'd like to practice but don't have the opportunity (or means or inclination) to be in actual RL drawing classes or take courses or meet with other hobby artists in RL or whatever to practice.

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[info]gnatkip
2007-09-02 09:11 pm UTC (link)
I think this is a fantastic idea. I'm not in the position to commit to administrative duties on it, but I would definitely watch it and pimp it.

I think it would be helpful for me, personally, to set aside just ten minutes or so, every day, as drawing time. And use one of the prompts to just draw SOMETHING. So often I feel stopped because I have a GOAL in mind and, like you said, I don't know how to do this thing or that thing to my satisfaction. I need to just accept that a sketch is quite probably going to suck. And that's ok; that's its only purpose, to just exist in all its suckitude.

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[info]ratcreature
2007-09-02 09:17 pm UTC (link)
I posted a poll in my next entry to gauge interest, so if there were a handful of other people I'd just create a comm (once I can think of a name, that is), and start browsing through a couple of art books for some exercise prompts I vaguely intended to try but never did, to get things started.

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[info]dirigibletrance
2007-09-02 06:07 am UTC (link)
Well, if you want, you can just have your f-list give you some drawing prompts directly. I am only an occasionaly doodler myself, so I don't really know of any drawing communities.

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[info]ratcreature
2007-09-02 06:40 am UTC (link)
Well, I tried that open prompt thing a while ago, but there's two problems with that. First it results in a bunch of prompts at once combined with a commitment to people which creates more pressure than having some daily prompt in a practice community. Second, whenever you ask for drawing prompts what people really want you to draw is their favorite characters, which is understandable but not what I want for this, especially since much of my f-list is live action fandom, and I suck at drawing actors, so I get rather stressed whenever I offer open prompts like that.

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[info]dirigibletrance
2007-09-02 07:18 am UTC (link)
Well, there's probably also books on drawing at the bookstore or library, that have drawing prompts in them.

Honestly, I dunno. Just try stuff until something works.

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[info]ratcreature
2007-09-02 07:39 am UTC (link)
I have a shelf full of drawing books, some of them even have exercises. What I'm looking for is the right mix of peer pressure and support that works as motivation booster. If I was a diligent and dedicated aspiring artist, I'd probably just have that motivation or something to just do this on my own, but for me the last time I manage that was when I met weekly with a group of others at my university who also liked to draw for fun witout being art students, and we drew and practiced together. I'm looking for the online equivalent.

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[info]dirigibletrance
2007-09-02 07:50 am UTC (link)
I don't know that you're necessarily going to find it online. It might be one of those social dynamics that can only really exist IRL.

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[info]girlwithoutfear
2007-09-02 06:58 am UTC (link)
Have you tried to do Illustration Friday prompts? It's any format/media you might like to use.

http://www.illustrationfriday.com/about_p.php

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[info]ratcreature
2007-09-02 07:06 am UTC (link)
No, I didn't know about that site. Thanks for pointing it out, I'll have a look.

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