During the course of the semester, I’ve had the pleasure of working with a bright and articulate student, Houen Zhou. Our first meeting involved reading over a photo analysis paper where he wrote about Zhongli Luo’s painting, “Father.” Something about Houen’s analysis and ability to notice details prompted me to ask if he would like to be a part of the Sketching House family. To my delight, he said yes! So today, Alex, Tala, and I are stepping aside to give the spotlight to Houen Zhou.

Thanks everyone!

Mari

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Tags: Art, Art Analysis, Art History, China, Chinese, Chinese History, Father, Guest Bloggers, Luo Zhongli, Mao, Oil Paintings, Painting Analysis, Painting Description, Picture Analysis, Sketching House, Zhongli Luo

Not too long ago I created straightforward art tutorial on how to draw necks. Last time, I didn’t even bother trying necks from different angles because drawing the neck from different angles can be one of the trickiest parts of drawing body art. Most artists, when they learn to draw anatomy, don’t even consider to learn to draw the neck at different angles. That’s not cool, because there is so much diversity that you can add to your drawings by using every type of post imaginable.

When drawing a neck from the side, draw a curving line that will represent the front of the neck. This line will curve inwards towards wherever you think the center of the neck will be. On the other side, draw a curving line that suddenly curves in a different direction when you reach the back. This is the neck of a woman and as you can see, the neck is never simply a cylinder but has an asymmetrical shape when viewed from the side. Click to read more …

You don’t have to go to art school and stare at naked models in order to learn how to draw body art. These art lessons will help you master figure drawing.

I normally don’t like to draw bodies when I’m life drawing. I like to draw clothed figures and clothing adds a lot of details to the drawing. But I’m kinda prudish when it comes to drawing the human figure. Still, the body needs to be understood when you draw characters.

Many find the human body to be very beautiful. The human body does have many curves and features that are very interesting and can be very beautiful.

Click to read more …

Some days, I wonder why I even bother to wake up; today is one of those days. The coffee pot died, the washer is dying, and the basement toilet is getting worse thanks in part to Alex for flushing the toilet paper holder thingy. To top everything off, I have a load of homework and articles to do, and my beloved best friend hasn’t spoken to me in four days and I don’t understand why. Alex and I have yet to receive an explanation. I texted her and called, but she won’t answer her phone at all, let alone kindly acknowledge the fact that I text messaged even though it costs me a huge sum of money. So, another weekend and more money out the window.

Once upon a time, when I was little girl in old country…

I don’t know where that came from. There’s way too much noise here today and I can’t think straight. My parents are fighting and I’m sitting right in the middle of it all. Why? I have nowhere else to go currently. My computer desk in my room is all cluttered with a lot of stuff that doesn’t even belong to me (spring cleaning, so my room is a storage depot), it’s freezing in my basement (the heater is on the fritz, too. Burning hair anyone?), and my niece is in her room. Sometimes, I just wish I could b*tchslap them all, scream “shut up,” and go on my merry way. I want a car BADLY, then I can escape.

How about a tutorial, guys? I think a tutorial would work; I need to keep my mind off things. Alex did an arm tutorial yesterday, which I was going to do today, but I will shelve that for awhile. How about we work on the lower half of the anatomy and create legs? Legs are fairly easy to draw, so this will be a simple tutorial. We’re just going to draw straight legs today, no bends or movement yet. Ready to begin? Since I’m short on time and have a lot of things to do, I’m going to use an art tutorial I created for another website last summer.

Click to read more …

Tags: Anatomy Drawing, Art Tutorial, Broken Appliances, Chewbacca, Digital Art, drawing tutorial, How to Draw Legs, Leg Definition Drawing, Leg Drawing, Leg Drawing Tutorial, Leg Sketching, Patron Saint of Appliances, Pencil Drawing, Photoshop, Scanner, Simple Leg Tutorial, Sketching Tutorial, Star Wars, traditional Art, Traditional Art Tutorial

When you finally learn to draw arms, a large part of your quest to learn how to draw body art is a quarter of the way through. Whether you draw manga or fine art, arms are often the most dynamic parts of the body because they can be moved in all sorts of directions and action poses. Arms can be easy or hard to draw depending on how detailed and muscular you want your character’s arms to look.

Start off by drawing a head. Theoretically, you could just draw the arm. But arms are hard to draw if you aren’t seeing them in proportion to the rest of the body and you might as well get more practice with figure drawing. So draw a circle. Click to read more …

Tags: Art, cartoon, circles, draw, lines, manga, proportion, realistic, Tutorial

Property of CNN

*Sigh* Another day, another headache. I’ve come to the realization that I am my workplace’s little slave girl. I called off work yesterday due to ice and the fact that I just badly needed a day off. Alex and I went to breakfast and we didn’t really have anything planned (although I wished we did ), but I just love being with him and sometimes, I just need time alone and away from everything to clear my head. During the time I was with Alex (mind you, I CALLED OFF), my workplace called FOUR TIMES asking if I could come to work. FOUR TIMES AFTER I called off! I ended up going to work, killing any feelings or good karma the two of us had. Alex had work to do anyway, he posted a blog yesterday. The whole thing made me cry. When I get to work, they slam me with paperwork (”This isn’t for punishment, I promise”) and difficult students (spread the love around) because someone wanted to take off early, therefore, I was left with the mess. Furthermore, I was suppose to get off at 5:00– as I do EVERY THURSDAY– and I finished my 4:15 session and left. *RING RING* There’s my cellphone; “you have a 5:00 appointment, you need to come back!” WHAT!? I’m OFF AT FIVE! Well, without consulting me, they scheduled me until 6 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Nice, huh? Better yet, the idiots are running the asylum, and I’m just a slave. To top it all off, they want me to miss class next week in order to hold a workshop. Say what? Um… no.

Now to shift gears.

How many of you have had trouble drawing clothes? I’ll be honest, clothes aren’t easy for me. For me, textures and folds are an issue and it’s something that I’m working on, however, I do know how to create a basic form for creating outfits. Today, I’m going to show you an extremely simple tutorial on creating basic clothes, which is better than having a naked figure. Artistic nudes are nice, but you can’t always have naked people in all your drawings. Moreover, there are simple ways to create texture in drawn clothes. Click to read more …

Tags: anime drawing, Art Tutorial, clothes drawing tutorial, Clothing Tutorial, creating creases in clothes, Digital Art Tutorial, drawing folds, drawing tutorial, French Art, Haute Couture, how to crosshatch, how to draw clothes, Jobs Woes, Photoshop, shading clothes, Traditional Art Tutorial, Work

If you ever want to know how to draw people, you have to get over the hurdle of drawing every little aspect of the anatomy. Yeah, a lot of artists try to simplify the neck because come on, it’s the neck. How many artists really obsess over how gorgeous a neck is? It’s one of those pieces of body art where you really don’t notice unless there’s something horribly wrong with it.

The neck is a difficult part of the body to draw for me when I’m figure drawing. It’s often the obstacle between drawing a gorgeous face and a well-designed body. Luckily, a lot of artists can get away with drawing less than adequate necks, since the neck isn’t always the part of the body that people obsess over the realism of. Still, who wants a character with a giraffe or hobbit neck?

This art tutorial will only focus on the neck from a frontal view. Why? Because I said so. Okay… it’s really because I want to go as in depth about drawing different kinds of necks before I start doing tutorials on pencil drawing the neck at different angles. Click to read more …

I’m back

Where was I? Working, school and being lazy. I’m sorry! I know, it’s been awhile. Marisol and I were trying to get an apartment but we ended up working so hard that everything started to suffer. From now on I’m going to stick with contributing to our tutorial art gallery.

Anyway, here’s another art drawing tutorial on nothing specific in particular. This tutorial focuses on drawing face art, rather than body art, giving explanations on how to draw out each part. I added advanced sections, even though they’re not really that much more advanced. They’re really just extra things you can look out for when you’re trying to go the extra mile with your art lessons. Click to read more …

Tags: anime, Art, artist, Artists, bangs, cartoon, cartooning, coloring, colors, draw, drawing, Drawings, drew, emotions, eye, Eyes, face, hair, personality, tablet, Tutorial, Tutorials

Tomorrow may come, and I may not be here

I cannot wait forever for you to finally see me

Tonight may be my ending; this moment may be my last

I’m tired of waiting for what we could be.

I’ve spent my time as second best; Living my life is total distress.

I do not have forever to sit and wait

For time to be right, and troubles to cease

Sadness and loneliness– that must be my fate.

Turn around, notice me, please, before it’s too late.

We’re losing each other; you’re losing me.

I’m adrift and lost– I no longer know myself.

I’m walking away… it’s me you’ll no longer see.

Farewell, so long, I’m leaving you behind.

But by the time you notice, I’ll be nowhere in sight.

Tomorrow will be too late, I’ll be absent from your side…

Forever gone to the endless night…

Click to read more …

Alex and I, I think, feel very lucky today. Yesterday, there was an apartment fire at the place we were going to live at. Unfortunately, someone lost their life–very tragic! God needed an angel by his side and unfortunately… however, the fire occurred at the apartments that Alex and I were originally going to live at! If we were there, we’d be dead or homeless right now. I’d say we are lucky. May God bless this girl’s family and I hope her family remembers recover from their injuries.

I’m suppose to be studying for a Linguistics quiz right now, but I’m very far behind on things. I have six articles I need to write for Demand Studios, two blogs for Divine Carol/Country Living, help Alex with some of his blogs (if he would ever sign online and let me know where he needs help at) and I need to come up with a ten page paper for my other job. Yes, for my tutoring job, we need to write papers to be reviewed. We also need community service. What is that? That place is ticking me off something horrible and I’m terribly close to quitting. If it wasn’t for the fact that I like working with the International students, I would leave. But, I guess I should be grateful for the fact that I have a job, that I’m not amongst the unemployed. But everything is looking desperate anymore. C’est la vie. However, yesterday, Alex and I developed a plan that would fix the economy for awhile… now if we could run for joint presidency…

On Valentine’s Day, the best possible thing happened. *Jumps around excitedly.* Pitchers and catchers reported for spring training! YES! The baseball season is right around the corner (Go Yankees! Go Cubs!)! Woohoo! And today is the Daytona 500! I hope my beloved Denny Hamlin wins! He’s my Sunday boyfriend, unless he races in the Nationwide Series on Saturday, then he’s my Saturday and Sunday boyfriend. All my boys of summer are back. Feel the speed, smell the green! Boogity, boogity, boogity! Let’s go racin’ boys! Play ball!

As mentioned, yesterday was Valentine’s Day. Alex and I went out to breakfast, went to the mall, took a long walk, had smoothies, went for dessert, went to Borders, and watched a movie called Towelhead (if you haven’t seen this movie or read the book, I recommend you do). It was a simple day, overall. I like simple, but I guess there’s a part of me that yearns for more romance. I guess I’m just a hopeless romantic at heart: always hoping for more.  I guess the romantic side of me is the side that wishes for “the next step,” even though it scares me at the same time. I’m very afraid of that “next step” because of the drama it will cause. I’m tired of drama, fearful of monster in-laws, and all the meddling. Thinking of that “next step” makes me anxious–good and bad. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t want a whole big shabang, instead, eloping sounds nice. Think of the money we’d save! But, taking that step is just a distant and frightening thought. I’m not going to bother with it any longer. But, I’d give up my heart for him, since he already owns it.

So what kind of tutorial shall we do today? I’m not exactly sure what I have to offer today. Since I haven’t had time to draw in awhile, I’m going to have to use a tutorial I did over the summer for another website. Let me see… how about how to draw elf ears? I promised an ear tutorial a long time ago, so I guess this counts. Click to read more …

Tags: Angles, Art Tutorial, Baseball, Bewitched, Boogity boogity boogity Let's go racin' boys, Chicago Cubs, Dale Earnhardt Jr, Daytona 500, Denny Hamlin, Digital Art Tutorial, drawing, Drawing Ears, drawing tutorial, Ear Drawing Tutorial, Ear Tutorial, economy, Elf Ear Tutorial, Elf Ears, Face Tutorial, films, fires, How to Draw Elf Ears, how to draw faces, How To Shade, Jimmy Wayne, Major League Baseball Spring Training 2009, Matt Kenseth, MLB, Movie TOwelhead, Movies, New York Yankees, romance, Shading Tutorial, Sketching Lines, Sketching Tutorial, Towelhead, Towelhead movie, Tracing Tutorial, traditional Art, traditional drawing, Traditional Shading Tutorial, Tutorial, Valentine's Day