Gu laoshi looking over Liu Man's drawing.
... Leftovers. XD
The drawing at the very front is a sketch demo by Gu laoshi. She always tells us -- my classmates, mostly -- to try to make our portraits look like 'real people' by using softer shades.
As for how I've been doing with this class, well... I have two words to describe everything so far: BRAIN DRAIN. My teacher and classmates have been more than appreciative and encouraging, however, so this is all probably just me angsting around in my head.
I really didn't think it'd be this torturous mentally... that is, when you know theoretically what you need to do, but not how to pull it off, so you do trial and error, but then you keep phailing and phailing... and phailing. I do know that I shouldn't try to learn so much in such a short time, and maybe I'm trying too hard... Guh, I've been having so many 'Lan moments' lately, ahaha... ha...
Anyway, without further ado, here's my Week 1 sketch, version 1...
... XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
It's gone, by the way! I tossed it to one side and a classmate asked if she could use the flip side for charcoal practice. At least the paper didn't go to waste -- yay!
Here's version 2, which I started on day 3. I fixed the proportions slightly, but the shading is still weird.
... and, it got weirder and weirder the longer I worked on it. OTL Gu laoshi said, albeit very nicely, that the face looked 'dirty.'
... so I erased and redid the shading on day 5. This time, I paid attention to the below-the-skin anatomy, and used some reference books. The outcome looked pretty okay, but still too gray...
I actually worked more on this in our classroom over the weekend, and even erased the whole face to fix the proportions... but in the end, I still threw it out. Because I'm not happy with it one bit, and I can't sit with that... ! TT___TT;;;;;
As for my resolution, I'm redoing it, for the third and last time, but! I'm doing some studies first, so I have something to refer to and not be so uptight when I'm doing the real thing.
I've tried to draw this guy in this angle so many times that I've almost memorized it -- it's just tragic! BUTTHISTIMEI'MGOINGTOMAKEHISFACEnotLOOKCONTORTED. Wish me luck!
Fun fact: I actually spend most of the free time, including weekends, in our classroom now, just trying desperately to get my sketches to look right. Of course, some my classmates like to do overtime as well. It's really quite intimidating cos they draw so efficiently already. For example, Zhang Xiaolong here is polishing his week 1 sketch.
Liu Fengyuan doing some studies for his anatomy homework with charcoal. He's long done with his week 1 sketch. I'm still in awe with how my classmates wield a range of mediums so confidently and effortlessly...
Of course, we aren't just art nerds... we're also music nerds. Here's Zhang Yuxi playing her erhu while procrastinating, hahaha. Liu Man was just yelling for her to stop playing the whole time, but it was okay, I guess. XD Hey, it's hard to learn an instrument!
We also had sketching homework over the weekend. For week 1, we had to draw twenty pages of this head structure shit. This is going to sound absurd, but I swear, I never felt so utterly miserable in my whole life. I think I was about to vomit blood while trying to draw in this style...
But, you know what... I actually realized how much these made sense while sketching just this morning. O___O So much so, that I think I couldn't have gone for long without this 'shit.' Absurd!
Here's last week's anatomy homework.
These actually took me like six hours, even with a direct sketch reference. Liu Fengyuan's charcoal sketches on the left of the bottom photo, on the other hand, took no time at all.
Anyway, sorry for putting you guys through this emo shit. I've been really tired and rather cofused lately, I don't know how I can let all this get to me so much... I miss drawing in manga style, but, yeah, I do believe this is all for the best... *nod nod*
BOOYAH!
