Sketch blog - goal to get through a ream of copy paper

Looks like you’re sketching with a pencil? I would recommend trying to use a pen (fineliner or gel pen for instance, not ball point) as the “on/off nature” of pens forces you to commit to your lines. I did classes with the mentioned Koos Eisen (the progression in the book reminds me of the exercises from class) and we had to sketch with fineliner and a couple of grey markers for basic shading right from the beginning. A bit daunting, but it did help. Not saying that you should always use pen, but I believe that it is a good tool to learn with.

That child’s bicycle seat is showing some nice progress btw. Not an easy object to tackle either. For some reason I cannot see all your attachments with the hair drier.

Thank you Q4857 and hatts! I’m glad to hear such encouraging words, they were just the boost I needed to continue practicing this weekend. :slight_smile:

jada - that is really cool that you took classes from Koos Eisen! Yes, those were done with Verithin pencil though I usually use Bic pens. Though now I will try switching to a gel pen as you suggest!

Yesterday I watched and followed along with the first hour of Scott Robertson’s Perspectives DVD up until the ellipses introduction. Today I focused on practicing pages of some of Scott Robertson ellipse exercises, though I used a a ballpoint Bic… I think next time I will try a sharpie or gel pen as Q4857 and jada said because I see now that I’m drawing each single ellipse 2-3 times instead of committing to 1 single line :confused:

I won’t post up all the exercises/pages sketched since they’re a bit boring, but here’s a small sample.
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Some sketches from today. The gel pen smears pretty badly, but it does force me to commit to a line! Did several pages of ellipses (just 1 page shown here).

I can already seem some improvement with my ellipses in my sketches, though of course I (still) need more practice!
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Just to clarify, it doesn’t have to be gel pen. The main point was any pen that is more on/off than ball point (ball point is nice to sketch with though), even basic Sharpies.

I also think various gel pens behave differently (they also tend to work well with alcohol based markers btw). I use Muji (both .38 and .5) and Pilot G-Tec-C4 .4 (some say the latter is the same as the hi-tec-c but that they can’t use that name for all markets).

Nice improvement. Makes me think I need to sketch more in general again. Work doesn’t require it at the stage most of my projects are in right now and I feel I’m getting rusty.

jada - glad that I can inspire someone to sketch more :slight_smile: Even if it’s not my sketches per se that are inspiring :stuck_out_tongue:
I will see if I can pick up some Muji pens when I’m travelling this summer. I’m just using what we have from our office supply cabinet.

More ellipses practice. I was inspired by the Braun post on core77 today to try to draw the designs from different perspectives… both the proportion and perspective are off on my sketches :confused: I tried switching between (a smudgy) gel pen, sharpie (felt it was difficult to get any “feeling”/line quality in the thick sharpie), so switched back to gel pen… felt extremely frustrated today sketching because the sketches all looked so bad. To finish off my sketching session I tried to lay down a quick sketch in ballpoint, and judging from that, I think that sketching in gel and sharpie are helping me by forcing me to commit to a line. (There’s no hiding or “redrawing” bad lines.)

Gotta keep up with practice, practice!



2 drawings in sharpie, 1 in gel pen.



Last one, ballpoint pen.

Actually, there is one question I have about ellipses! I read this in Koos Eisen’s Sketching book, and I don’t understand why only the 3rd one from the left has the proper perspective?? While the other ones are not in proper perspective?!! Can anyone explain it better?

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I’m pretty sure it’s just saying that the rectangle drawn around the ellipse is a perfect square in perspective. The others are not perfect squares if you were to rotate them and look dead on.

Didn’t manage so well with sketching this weekend. This week is a new week however :slight_smile: So as not to die of boredom over sketching just ellipses, tried a rendering tutorial from idsketching to learn some of the basic tools in Photoshop. Some small ugly parts (I’m shaky with the lasso tool since I normally use the pen tool), but as a learning exercise I think it’s ok… I realized after I finished that the perspective was off, so I tried to fix it in the 2nd version. I don’t quite understand where and how to put reflections/shadows but I think that will come with practice…


How many sheets have you used so far? Learn by doing works – even if you don’t feel ready for a rendering, this is a great way to keep your interest up.

Take a second look at the stand/leg on the front of this thing (oscilloscope?) On an actual object bottom plane of the leg would likely be parallel to the body of the object – try making the line that defines the corner of the leg at an angle that is closer to angle of the body.

Very nice, watch your perspective though. Lines should taper toward the horizon line.

Thanks for the feedback :smiley: :slight_smile: Hmm, I realize that after today’s sketching session I’ve only gone through 43 sheets in 2 weeks (not including warm up sheets)… To go through 500 sheets means I should be doing 32 sheets per week… need to step it up :confused:

I tried to fix/understand the perspective… it’s not often that I draw rotated cubes… I understand where the cyan lines come from, and the dark blue, but the YELLOW one…? Is it estimated from the length of the equal length “verticals” in light green + parallel to the top cyan perspective line?..

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Tried to draw some boxes on larger A3 (approx twice letter size) paper. I didn’t realize how rusty I am, could use more perspective boxes practice…

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Tried to draw the computer thing with Staedtler fineliner on paper. Took a few sheet of paper before I set up the proper grid/perspective. Was hard to get any contrast/pop with the dark fineliner so I tried to use a sharpie to outline… hmm.
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one more
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It’s a bit slow at work today, so I got the chance to do lots of sketching:

1 - ideation sketches for a shop radio
2 - drawing an existing product from a photo, then trying to draw it from a different, imagined viewpoint
3 - overlays to try to improve the drawing

I’m my own worst critic… I’m often tense when I sketch, and almost afraid to draw sometimes…

I will try to follow along with this course! Feels motivating to have a structured “course” or group to follow along with, even if it’s virtual/imaginary :astonished:

I think my goal is to practice so much that I reach a point where I’m relaxed when I sketch! Then the ideas can just come out instead of feeling tense over how bad the sketch is looking.
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1
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more
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overlay
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Trying to post less often, but sketch more instead :slight_smile: I think I have made some nice progress over the last few days.

I sat down and tried to

  • get a better understanding of perspective
  • tried to figure out WHY my perspective is off and how to not to keep repeating the same mistakes.
  • Also switched to A3 (11x17) paper

Starting to relax a lot more, while also slowing down and TAKING MY TIME to get the lines right… I also experimented with sketching the perspective underlay in light grey marker before drawing on top with pen… I think this workflow works good for me for now since I still struggle with perspective.

A sample of the latest sketches.
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It may help if you grab a ruler and a red marker/pen and go over a handful of sketches and correct the perspective. It’s definitely an improvement, but watch those diverging lines. Also drawing through and showing the hidden lines is a good thing to practice when trying to nail down perspective.

Aaron