Art Every Day- Day 7 - Pencil Sketches

Today I was inspired to do some sketching. Actually I started off wanting to do a painting, but thought I should work on a sketch first - which then led to doing a bunch of sketches, and no painting. Haha. But that's ok. Its good to practice before doing a final piece anyway. That is actually something I don't do often enough. 

Figure drawing, and painting for that matter, is one of the hardest things to do. I have definitely improved over the years, but I still have a long way to go. For many many months now I've had a series of paintings and images in my head that I want to create. I've tried to do a few of them recently, but I'm struggling with getting the idea in my head - onto canvas. I think, I realized today, that I am not ready for them yet. They are not ready to be manifested - until I have had more practice working on figures. As you will see from the sketches I worked on today, my thoughts are geared towards nudes and eroticism. I am very drawn to the subject matter of late and have gathered a large file of images to work from. 

These sketches were all done with a regular old #2 pencil in a basic sketch book. I wasn't planning on doing these as final pieces, so I just picked up the nearest pencil and sketchbook when inspiration struck, rather than get out my various drawing pencils and good drawing paper, and started drawing. I thought I was just going to do one quick sketch too, before moving on to a painting - but 8 hours later I'm still sitting here with a pencil instead of a paintbrush. Actually I'm sitting here typing on a keyboard now. ;-)

These sketches turned out ok overall - but I'm still having problems with faces - getting the angles and features right. They are all copied from reference photos I have gathered from various places. The last sketch is actually a picture of me - a selfie I took a while ago (minus the hand with the cellphone). While it kinda looks like me - it doesn't really. My nose and mouth are off, actually the whole face seems off to me. I kinda look evil or stuck up, lol- which is not the look in the picture. I dunno. Looks are hard to get right. I haven't drawn myself in a long time so I thought I'd throw a self portrait in the mix. It was the last drawing I did today. I think I need to practice some more. 

In the other sketches, I had a hard time with the guys faces for some reason. They are all similar looks - in profile, with mouth open, his hand on her face and neck  - but I just wasn't getting the look right as compared to the actual picture. I think that's why I did 3 different versions of similar looks - to see if I get one of them right. The first sketch (long haired guy), was actually the 3rd one I did. Its the best one in my opinion, so I guess I got a bit better as the day went on. I picked difficult angles for the women too, but I think they turned out decent for the most part. 

So a good day of drawings for Day 7 of Art Every Day!