150 practices, 30 seconds each

I used to be in the habit of practicing 60 sec and 30 sec daily. I wanted to try it again today, so these were the results after 150 practices in a row.

If you have any advice, any advice that could help me to improve, I would be very grateful.

https://imgur.com/a/0odHRxn

Howsit goin! Welcome to the space. Critiques are tough, but they help soooo much.

Im impressed by the amount of practice you've done! No one ever says this, because gesture drawing is one of the first things art teachers tell you to practice, but they are very difficult and even more difficult to do well, especially with animals. Using them as warm up, then practicing longer poses is really vital, since longer poses are important to analyze and undertstand the human form.

You're making the same mistake I used to make (and sometimes still slip into the habit of doing) by using the short time frame to practice the first steps of constructing a figure. THis is technically not wrong and you haven't wasted your time as its important to practice that as well, BUT the point of a short gesture is to get the whole figure on the page. If you've spent to much time making the face correct and forget to add legs, then you haven't used your time correctly. You're faces are pretty great, but you are also kind of using them as a crutch to avoid practicing the form of the animals. I should be able to tell what kind of animal you are drawing without the face, by just looking at the body.

This is very hard to do. It takes a lot of practice.

Another thing that I pretty much tell every nooby on this site is to work on your line confidence. Scribbly lines mostly happen when you are draw the same line over and over, essentially doing your thinking on the page. TAKE YOUR TIME. One confident solid line is far more powerful than a bunch of scribbly ones. I find the best way to practice drawing one line instead of several is to hold your pen slightly over the paper, practicing the motion, then placing it down when you're sure of the mark to make.

For future practices, I reccomend

A) Doing longer poses. Animals are harder to draw. It isn't cheating to take your time for how you practice their figures. Even two minutes would be fine. Just remember to concentrate on the whole form of the animal first and not focusing on the face.

OR

B) Keeping the current length of these poses, but making them simpler, with fewer lines, maybe a thicker brush tip. Draw the WHOLE animal, no skipping limbs. Curved lines do wonders when you are short on time. Draw them the right way and they seem to have volume without having to add a shape.

This image i just googled is a great example of the quicker drawn gesture that Im talking about. Feel free to google other examples too. Mix the styles even. Whatever it takes to get the entire essence of that animal you are drawing.

Keep up the practice. Animals are HARD. My favorite piece of yours was the dog shaking his head.

Your comment is a great help, thank you very much! I will be using the tips in my next practices (I will also be posting them for feedback on this forum, it is very useful). You are very detailed in your answers and you make me smile at the end of the critique; it has not been difficult to accept it, I am open minded and I accept any comment with the desire to improve and learn.

I repeat, I really thank you very much, I will do both recommended ideas!

Good evening, Jolty Beans, and welcome aboard, I'm Polyvios Animations, and how are you tonight? Say, most spectacular in your range of constant improvement and exploriation in your liveliest lines of action, balance, and rhythm in most all of your animals, very greatest range of confidence in your lines in terms of their inherent looseness. But still, these lines all don't seem too confident enough to me yet, for they seem far too hairier in their executions. How would you care to hold your Apple Pencil by the very end with 6 minutes of 29 second quick sketches?

The understanding for this constructive bit of critiquing is because you can, shall, and will be getting into drawing more to how you see and the subject moves, and not to how you know. See?

But that's not all, if you just consolidate your time limits incrementally by one second, then you can and shall get more into the zone of your line controls.

For most information, please look into the PDF of the Vilppu Drawing Manual. Good luck, and let's hope they've helped, informed and encouraged you the best.

Thank you very much for your comments and advice, Polyvios Animations! I have recently been reading the book "Force: Animal Drawing; Animal Locomotion and Design Concepts for Animators" in order to better understand how to draw animals; today I have read up to page 56 and have tried to put into practice what I have learned plus some tips given in this new publication (another 150 practices of 30 seconds each).

https://line-of-action.com/forums/topic/new-150-practices-30-seconds-each-2-notespractices-from-the-book-force-animal-drawing-10-thicker-stroke-practices

I just recently noticed your comment, so I couldn't exercise your advice before putting into practice what I did today (what is in the link), but I consider you are right: further introspection on the texture of the animals might also give me a closer approach to the final result I'm hoping to achieve. I will start practicing a bit longer as you recommended.