First Piece!

Part of the DrawABox teachings on mindset and approach deals with overcoming the fear of complete suckage that many budding artists deal with. The idea of "I would draw X if I could, but I'm not ready yet." Their solution, draw it anyway and don't worry if it's bad. It's a students job to fail and then learn from it.

Well my most favorite subject in art is the female form. The nuder the better. Not overly erotic, but inspiring and uplifting. Beauty over titillation. But there are so many good reference photos out there. Which one to choose?

I settled on this photo of Mikaila Dimova (not sure who the photographer is):

I love the shadow down her left side! I had to draw it.

But not all at once. I didn't think I could. Especially not the hand and face. So I figured I would take this in three stages of increasing difficulty: hips, bust, and face.

Here's the hips study I drew:

Hey, not bad for a first drawing! It does look a little wonky in places, but I think I got the curve of the hips basically right. I actually measured and plotted out some reference points for the pinch of the waist and the locations of the hips and legs. I eyeballed the rest of it. Whoever invented the eraser deserves a National Holiday.

I really like the bellybutton! I did that using the ellipse-drawing technique I learned from DrawABox. I mostly eyeballed the location; I think I measured out a reference point in the beginning but ended up shifting it slightly when the time came to shade it.

At first, it wasn't my intention to draw the hand. Hands are intimidating. But I was feeling confident after "nailing" the rest of the torso geometry. So what the hell; let's toss in a hand. It looks a little goofy, but not completely terrible. There's some meat to the palm that shouldn't be there and it just looks a bit off.

And if I have the hand, might as well add the hair. And just... nope. That didn't work out well at all.

As for the dark background? In for a penny, in for a pound. In hindsight, I'd rather not have drawn the background. It looks splotchy.

For the shading, I watched this tutorial on YouTube and walked away with the idea that graphite shading is done in layers. Lay on the base layer and slowly build up the shadows. I can see the reason behind the theory, but my execution could use some work. I also ran into an issue with the paper I was using (plain printer paper). I could only pack on so much graphite before everything started to look spotty. I think I would have to shade in fewer but darker layers if I was drawing on regular printer paper.

So here's what I learned from drawing this piece:

• Patience is the most important virtue. Lean into that flow state when you can. Walk away and come back later when you must. This piece took fooooreeeeever. But it was worth it.

• Shading is best done in layers and built up soooo slowly. Lay down the base layer and then start with your shadows, building them up slowly. How slowly you can build them likely has something to do with how well your paper takes graphite.

• Draw, and especially shade, with zero tension in your shoulder, arm, wrist, and fingers. I think being a violinist was especially helpful here.