Since I don’t really know the software, it didn’t end up looking like it was drawn with charcoal. More like petroleum jelly on wax paper.
That is one of the disadvantages of digital media; normally there aren’t that many settings and options on a chunk of charcoal.

Self-Portrait 4-12-12 preliminary sketch

First ten minutes. Preliminary sketch where I roughed out the facial features and blocked in the background.

Twenty minutes into the sketch.

After twenty minutes of sketching I was starting to get some values on the face. You can get some nice soft shading gradations with charcoal but I wasn’t interested in that.

darren brant Self-Portrait 4-12-12 After Thirty Minutes

This is how my self-portrait looked after thirty minutes. I was trying to darken up the shadows on my face without loosing the nervous feel to the lines.

Self-Portrait 4-12-12 final

After forty minutes of work I decided I was done. I’m happy with the results, especially since my Corel Painter knowledge is negligible. (Listen to the artist blame his tools)

Title: Self Portrait 4/12/12
Media: Corel Painter 12 (charcoal)
Size: 11″ x 17″

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To try out my new toy I dashed off a few quick figure sketches of my artist’s mannequin.

Still not quite used to the digital art medium. More practice required.

Using the Soft Conte tool

Reclining Figure

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My thought was to approach the drawing as an abstract collection of values instead of being concerned with proportion as I normally would with a figure drawing. I was hoping that this method would help break through my anxiety based procrastination that I’ve been experiencing lately.

Also I was feeling guilty about sitting down for 30 minutes and drawing when I should be working. To counter this I decided to limit myself to 10 minutes of drawing time each day for three days. Spending 10 minutes a day on a “frivolous” activity in this way was somehow acceptable.

Armed with these ground rules, I gave myself permission to fail and then started drawing.

The First Ten Minutes

My first 10 minutes of sketching resulted in a basic outline of the left edge of the figure (see screenshot below).
I was being too prissy and I wasn’t working over the whole figure at once. Also if you compare it to the original, I had chopped the figure to just below the torso – because I had paid no attention to the proportion of the figure.

Beginning of the Figure Sketch @10 Minutes

The Second Ten Minutes

The next day, after examining my progress, I decided to keep at it despite having cropped the figure. I blocked in the right side of the figure with a heavier stroke and attempted to map out some of the values of the torso. I also tried to pick up the pace a bit here, and after another 10 minutes this is what the sketch looked like.

nude female figure sketch torso @ 20 minutes

Thirty Minutes

The next day I sat down to finish the drawing with my last 10 minute chunk of time. I concentrated on shading the figure and trying to get the values properly related to each other. After my 10 minute session was over I was happy with the results, but thought with a few more minutes of work would be required. I decided to put in another 10 minute session the next day just to smooth out some of the rough shading.

nude female figure sketch torso 30min

The Final Sketch

The next night I spent another ten minutes just going over the whole figure and background.

Nude female figure, final sketch. Drawn with a Wacom tablet and Corel Painter Sketchpad.

At the end of my little exercise I was pleased with the results. The only problem I have is that by the time I completed the drawing the original Deviant art account had been closed down and the original stock image removed. I didn’t take note of the artist’s terms of use for the stock so I hope I’m not in violation of them by posting my sketch here.

Lessons learned:

1. Better record keeping required on my part.
2. Next time I’ll use stock that I’ve actually purchased the rights to.
3. By scheduling small blocks of time on my calendar I’m more likely to practice.
4. Write the purpose of the practice piece/session first.
5. Giving myself permission to fail helps to overcome my anxiety.

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The North American verson of the Intuos4 comes with a choice of two from the following Autodesk® SketchBook® Express 2010, Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 8, or Corel® Painter Sketch Pad.

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The software comes as a digital download, and you only get one chance to make your choice. Since I’m not familiar with any of the software I’m downloading the trials first before I make my decisions.

So far I’m liking SketchBook. The only problem I have is now it just hangs when I try to run it. Not sure what happened, more thought required.

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