(Part 2) Top products from r/SketchDaily

I love urban sketching so much and really want to get better at it. I've been bringing my sketchbook with me on vacation for a while now, but have had a tough time using it more than once or twice until my most recent trip. Here are some of my favorites.

My very first time! - this was in Cordoba, Spain. It's not at all what I was trying to do, but I still really like how it turned out. I was hoping to fit a lot more in the scene, but I drew things too big and just went with it. A french guy walking by saw it and said it was nice (I think) and gave me a thumbs up.

Killing time in Tokyo - The Fuji TV building by the Aqua City mall. My wife and I got there early and were waiting for places to open, so we found a bench with a nice view. (Bonus yoyogi park on the other page)

The river in Kyoto - This was the most relaxing place I've ever drawn. It's also when I realized the importance of sunscreen for urban sketching.

The park by my house - I try to get out and do stuff here once in a while too, but it's hard. I live in the deep suburbs surrounded by cookie cutter houses, so it can be tough finding something interesting to draw.


Some memorable things that have happend while I was out sketching:

• Someone from a church in Japan came over and tried to convert me. He was nice about it, but he stuck around for a good 20 minutes before my wife came back and saved me.
  
  
• Inquisitive little kids came up to see what I was doing and ask a bunch of questions. One of them was really curious about my sketchbook and flipped my page mid painting. It was such a ridiculous and unexpected thing to happen (maybe not unexpected to those of you with kids) it was easy to laugh off though.
  
  
• Lots of people trying to very discreely peek at what I'm doing. People are not nearly as sneaky as they think they are. Lots of people peek but very few say anything, which is kind of a weird feeling.
  
  
• Being unable to finish a drawing because I was getting attacked by bugs
  
  When I look back at the sketches I did I remember all these things and more. I take a ton of photos on vacation too, but I don't feel attached to them in the same way. Probably because a picture is so much faster to take... you're really forced to stop and take things in when you draw the scene. There's probably a life lesson in there somewhere.
  
  
  Anyways, that's more than enough about me. Here are some resources!
  
  
• The Urban Sketcher: Techniques for Seeing and Drawing on Location - this book is phenomenal and I can't recommend it enough. It's a great book even if you have no desire to go draw outside.
  
  
• Alphonso Dunn's urban sketching videos - So many of his videos are great, and I really liked these ones.
  
  
• The #usk tag on instagram - so many amazingly talented people.
  
  But really if you're at all interested in urban sketching just grab a sketchbook, some supplies, and get out there. Even if you end up not liking your art at least you spent the day outside doing something you enjoy, and that's tough to beat.

Only 5~ months ago did I decide to get serious about improving my art in my free time. For most of my life I only doodled occasionally. So I thought I would describe my plan of action with books and resources that I will likely be using. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

My process will be basics of construction-> perspective -> figure drawing -> digital art and rendering. Approximately 45% will be improving, 45% will be doing what I want for fun and 10% will be a daily sketch(this subreddit) that takes anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour to complete. for fun I will be doing anything from digital to water color.

Construction and perspective: First I am starting my art journey by completing draw a box . Next I will go through Marshall Vandruff's Linear Perspective Videos and Perspective Made Easy simultaneously while referencing with how to draw by Scott Robertson. Briefly I will gloss at Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain or keys to drawing pulling ideas of where I might find weakness.

Figure drawing: Once those are finished, I will begin my figure drawing phase. I will move onto free proko subsided with loomis books such as this, other photo references sites like http://reference.sketchdaily.net/en and Figure Drawing: Design and Invention. I will also reference Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist and maybe more depending on my budget.

digital art and rendering: For the final stage of my journey, I will venture into ctrlpaint. Simultaneously I will be reading How to Render, Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist and Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter

After that.... I don't know. We will see were I am in a year.

I recently bought a book called Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines, 15th Edition and it has pretty good information about pricing and other stuff. So far it's pretty good but it may be a bit pricy(depends where you're from obviously), but if you're interested in starting out selling your art, I highly recommend it. It's a bit technical so it's no bed-side reading!


Kendyll Hillegas has also great information about selling your art and about some general stuff also, so check her out also!

Wow, thanks! Um, the best thing I ever learned about color was to liberally use warms and cools to indicate planes and depth, and (as an extension of that) never use black or white paint. This book is technically about oil painting, but has a lot of excellent color advice for all types of painting. Hope those links are interesting/helpful! :)

I do figure drawing 3 or 4 times a week, and try to join special events if available. I find it extremely relaxing.

There are so many books out there but my favorites are Mike Matessi's Force dynamic drawing and Bill Buchman's Expressive Figure Drawing. Those two books should bring you a very long way!

Here are my drawings from last night's session

I'd love to link to an amazing amazon illustration, but it wouldn't be mine... Here is the inspiration, and here is the drawing.

:) Thank you! I ink before I paint. I'll do a really light pencil outline then use a .1 pen to hit all the lines and then pick out which lines need more weight. Like a dum dum though it took me a while to figure out I needed waterproof ink pens. These are my jam.

This is my favourite book on animation!

And this tutorial is pretty helpful in understanding how to use Photoshop for creating gifs.

here it is! It is kind of a medley of tips for several different mediums, but I just skip around and read the bits for watercolor :)

RGD #1

RGD #2 (NSFW)

Dat bun.

Alt theme Freya, you say?! maniacal cackling

A foot, chanelling my inner Burne Hogarth.

Really quick geek from a book I've been working out of

Just in case any one is wondering, this is the book.

Also, a couple of books that might give you some jumping off points are Black Images in the Comics and Pioneering Cartoonists of Color.. As far as Manga goes I know Billy Bat by Naoki Urasawa and Eagle by Kaiji Kawaguchi feature a lot of dark skinned characters.

It's this one!