I recently got into drawing and I recognized I was not very fast in my draftsmanship. A friend sent me a link to FZD’s ‘Just Draw’ podcast and said that I should try it with him; he had already been going for a few weeks and said the timed element helped him with his speed. Last Monday I started week 1 which consists of drawing rocks and formations. These are some of my favorite sketches from the first week of the structured study sessions. At the start of this, my drawings were... not good. I would frequently go over time to finish, and they took on very low dimensional quality; despite shading and cross contours. From looking at the FZD example sketches, I realized that I needed to finally put in the time to learn perspective. I began to read a pdf of Norlings’ Perspective Made Easy on my phone during lunch breaks. At the end of each day, I tried to incorporate what I’d learned into my rock drawings. By Friday, I started to get some better results. At the end of the week I wanted to see if I had improved my perspective, so I re-did a drawing from Monday on Friday; I attached both the drawings, (as well as my reference), and I’m satisfied with the result. I’m still not very good at perspective, but I like how it helps me think of form, and organize elements in 3D space. I hope perspective will not be too complicated when I start to use it on trees this week.Â
They say the point of Just Draw is to have fun, and while this first week wasn’t very fun for me, it was rewarding to put a new tool in my visual toolbox.