The Hideous Portrait: An Artistic Journey,
warts and all.

So here it is, after 45 days of a streak in poses studies, I decided I can't go on. I mean I could had, I could had done 5 minutes of posture practice today just to retain the streak but I can't. I broke the skull/headplanes studies, I broke the hand and gestures studies. I just did some doodling on good old paper. This day was building up into an eruption day. I happened to have two back to back conversations about my dissatisfaction about my life and drawing/painting in it, I've felt so tired lately, so uninspired and tired... I decided if any day, today is the day to put creativity above practice. It's not a good day by all means. I feel hopeless and my drawing is not turning around the mood. But it is what it is. I can only dream of watching some tv, and then heading to bed. So what are the good news of the day? I broke the streak! I broke the 45 days streak. The world has not collapsed; all that will happen is that tomorrow I might count only up to 30mins of pra

  Arghh, I had all these new materials and instead I worked with my ipad. Anyway, it's one of the better days - I tried to avoid practice (but at the end I gave in a did some little gestures not to break the streak) and most of what I did was attempts at perspective; a 40s racer and a building block. I'm happy about tthe results on both pieces. Though there are perspective errors, I managed to cheat it and make them look okay. After that I did same values exploration and came up with that settlement scene that I like both for the perspective, and the shading. Earlier I did a couple hours of studies on the asaro head and the planes of the head. Overall I'm keeping that while I didn't go completely wild, I managed not to focus on dry studies, and  I like the results too. time for bed.

      And here I thought that I had succeeded in "taking a day off". What a fool, I got tricked. I thought I should relax since I was was starting getting resentful and feelings of repulsion towards "drawing" which I've lately come to related to having overworked myself. I started my day with studying the planes of the head (today I went back to the reilly method and the asaro head) and when I decided not to draw, instead stop after I some gesture, posture and hand practice. Yeap, I effectively took the day off from the only thing that might had been redeeming in painting: doodling and creating. And instead, I focused on practice and study, which after all is what I've been mostly doing all these days. Well done dummy. Anyway, what am I happy about today? Quite a few things, unrelated to artmaking (oh, some are; I got some art supplies my mail today but haven't opened them since I am waiting 3 days for covid19 to die on the surfaces of the supplies - hah

So let's see: The greatest success of the day, is that I managed to limit my "practice" (something like 45mins) and that I did some exploratory light/dark sketching/painting that I hadn't done for a long time. Gesture practice is good as always and hands are starting to be more consistent. Skulls are still a struggle but "I'm doing the work". The exploratory painting was very interesting. there is atmosphere, receding trees towards the horizon, and I even used an extra color. It probably the closest I've even gotten to controlling details - hard, soft edges.. I even got to play with ambient light. Enjoyable and glad that it wasn't all about practice today. Time for bed.

  It's 6:23am and I still haven't gone to bed. Yet I realized that I hadn't uploaded today's work and couldn't leave it for tomorrow, so I decided to do it. Not that it does make any sense; so much for the freedom from habit. Anyway, studied the skull and planes of the head a bit more today. It's a difficult topic that I haven't managed to crack yet, mostly because I don't understand what is it that I should study. Anyway, I did slight progress on understanding the skull/planes, did some nice skull drawings and wrapped up with a doodle is all but interesting. But at least I put some color, a palette that I find pretty and finished the day with a colorful note. Extra points for that! At the same time I listened to an online artist saying that "you don't have to waste your life studying the fundamentals, but have to stop at some point" and this I feel that has started making some sense finally. Indeed, perhaps, there is no such thing such as

So here is another day that I went through the process. Thanks to the discord community I spend more hours doodling compared to before! This was another day that I tried to understand what method for studying the planes of the head is right for me. I didn't reach a conclusion, I'm not even sure I need one. Anyway, I did some study of planes and shading, some gestures, and finally did some doodling. I tried working with a thin unforgiving "technical pen" brush to practice line confidence since lately I've been very loose (which I like but at the same time makes me worry). I am very satisfied, that despite the wobbly and ugly lines, the posture is there, and even the proportions are there! There were some doodles where I applied foreshortening and looked absolutely fine, but the highlight of the day was the olives man. It started as a random doodle, then I drew a trenchcoat with shades and a suspended leg and it was read. Overall very satisfied with it! Perhaps a l

  Today has been a tiresome, yet productive day. I feel I did the full package: I studied/practiced planes of the head (I'm start to memorize some different models though I'm not yet ready to integrate the study to reality), did shading, did something creative and finally (had almost forgotten it) did gesture/posture practice (body, hand and head). By the time I was doing the postures I was beat; I was on afterburners. Probably not the best way to study but I'm both happy that I did it, and that the results were decent for a deadbeat. I'm leaving the best part for the end, since I feel that today's doodle, has been one of the best ever! It was prompted from the idea of a tree that some people on discord channel agreed upon and starting from the tree at the center/top, and the pagoda next to, it slowly became the whole scene that can be seen. What do I like? Everything! The line,  the details, the colors, the shading, the local contrast, the perspective, the human fi

  And here it is! After two or three years of studying anatomy and construction of head, I'm finally decided to study the planes of the head! I checked proko's method, the loomis method and the asaro head. I'm confused. It all looks so complicated and to be honest I don't even know where to start from. It seems that these planes are not planar and thus not consistent in rotation. Then again, it's been day 1 of the efforts. I am calm knowing that I'll crack it, and worse case scenario I might have to ask somebody. In any case today I did a few dozen studies (that I lost since the app crashed, but luckily there wasn't anything interesting in it) and later on to unwind I did a few lazy doodles in procreate. What am I satisfied with? With learning something new and knowing that I'll eventually master it. At the same time, regardless of mastery over the planes, this will improve my heads in general! So today's success has been more on the inspiration, and

  So today has been a long day and will be even longer. What did I like about it? Gestures were cool, postures too, hands as well!  I did a nice Conan figure and some other doodles. Doesn't feel very creative but it feels as if I got through another of those uninspired days!

I liked the above phrase. Dad, draw all days. There is the belief that if you draw everyday, you improve. I don't know if it's true, buy I remember a few months back coming across and it felt natural. Then again, at other periods of my life I had come to the realization that if I give myself "downtime", time away from drawing this speeds up learning since you also need time to digest. Often always, the biggest improvements were not when I was practicing, but the long stretches of time that I wouldn't practice. Anyway, today had been pretty productive. Other than ellipses, I did lots and lots of doodles (I'm starting to think that it might be time to break them into separate sheets because they get lost in their miniature size. Anyway, lot's of cool stuff here; buildings, cards, statues in nice dynamic poses, perspective, machinery, heads, successful attempts at foreshortening and what not; wild beasts, mosques, tomes, robots, aliens, simplistic cartooney

And here we are, the day after struggling to replicate the same success, but failing miserably! It hurts, but then again, it doesn't hurt as much as it did. I'm not that happy with postures today, but then again it's not all doom and gloom; they are still indicative of the actual posture, and given that these are all new and complex ones, I am reluctantly satisfied. I did some work on the logo (I vectorized it) and started testing typography which is good since I need to slowly wrap up the project. Finally, I got on discord again, exposed myself to chatter and did my best to get into the mood of creative doodling. It was a very stressful situation with all the people and the fact that I was trying to live up to my yesterday's success made it all the more stressful. I doodled a lot, A for effort; I tried and tried and only at the very end (which actually came 2h later since I was desperate to leave on a high note) did I come up with something enjoyable and pleasing: A fu

I did some little gesture/posture practice which I was planning on continuing but didn't because when I got back, I got into a conversation that completely got me out of the mood. However it transformed into something so much better - I had one of these superproductive evenings, that was thanks to the mere fact that I was in part being watched (funny how being watched gives me energy) and part being engaged in listening and discussing! This allowed new ideas to flow (words I'd catch here and there that would give me things to draw, directions to take) and at the same time, kept my analytical brain preoccupied. As a result, I was doing lots and lots of awesome sketches! What can I say about today then? I did vikings, gargoyles, bakers, mages, knights, animals, birds, pirates with bums and stockings, trenchcoats, robots, reflections, strange beings, vehicles, death-stars, mines, superheroes and complete scenes! For a change, I did a lot of complete scenes, something that I find

Quickly quickly to wrap up for today: I did some extensive practice, and yet there hasn't been much creative stuff,  mostly practice. However, I've reentered that space where my hand is warmed-up. Today I've been drawing for more than 4h so this could be related to the quantity. Anyway, what positives can I identify? Postures were good; It's as if all muscle stuff is falling into place; and I even did a few 5 minute postures. Some are very niceActually I enjoyed the process a lot today since I was doing on youtube some alive models as opposed to static photographs. Hand postures were also good though I still haven't found the time to study some method; I'm still winging it. Since I had lots of time today, I did some doodles, many of which were quite interesting, including some nice vehicle designs, some foreshortened people, fabrics and flip-flops. I even did some architectural perspective which is good since I hadn't done anything in a long time. I

Posture and gesture practice had been satisfying; and I guess that's pretty much all of it, I did it in excess today! The bottomline is that this has been an iteration building on my previous days understanding, some realistic complex contortions and finally some doodles where there is a funny scene I will name now "Aladdin flies to a Buddhist temple!". On the flip-side, I was considerably tired and unenthusiastic today, and though I did extensive practice I didn't have the energy and speed that I had yesterday. I''m happy that I've "evolved" enough to be able to see that not all days are equal, and that this is not a sign of failure.

  Today has been pretty relaxed! I didn't do any long pose studies (long as in 2min) but I did my dues in 30 and 45sec ones. I did hands too. Some of the postures (such as the two in second line's first block) I like a lot and the really small ones are nice too; they convey the posture! Hands have been improving nowadays most figures have decent hands (which was the exception a few years ago). The  second sheet is some random thought; skulls/heads, random postures, random characters, vehicles and buildings. Lots to like here; the principal sitting on his chair, the guy with the sandals, the girl, but most of all these very dreamy illustrations at the last panel; of alien landscapes and lost civilizations! They give me a strange mixture of fine arts and comics vibe - the thick outline, the contrast! Feels like Van Gogh, meets moebius! Overall quite satisfied, and the fact that I was doing these while casually chatting on discord, made them even more fun and less stressful. Looki

So what happens now that I've crossed 100 days? I don't know. I don't what will allow me to conclude this "infinite days challenge". Anyway, I keep moaning about it. Let's move on to something else. So today I did some 20x 45sec postures, 20x 30sec gestures and 4x 5min postures and finally 20x 45sec hand studies.  I'm happy with all of it. I still struggling to simplify but I feel there is life into the postures/gestures - though come to think about it, I didn't really do gestures today; I did mostly quick skeletons. Doing the postures was more exciting and I'm quite happy with most of them. I had the opportunity to work with the male body and nail down some muscles. Finally hands have been considerably better that other days. To wrap up I did some skulls trying to regain the ability to draw them I'm quite happy with most of them; It was obvious that I had already warmed up by that time; hands and bodies were alive and fast. I even did

So here we are, day 100. It's been 100 days non-stop that I've been drawing/doodling/practicing! Didn't miss a bit once. Not that before that I hadn't been consistent (over the last 3 years I'd draw 2/3 days - or was it 1/3?) nonetheless, here we are. I don't even know that that is to be honest. What have I succeeded in? What is it that I've managed? Consistency? maybe, but I know I can't be consistent forever. Progress? I doubt it. Less social life? For sure! What have I gained? Of course proof that I have a measure of determination and discipline. A measure, being the keyword; more than some, less most probably than others. So? It's a mystery, an elusive situation. Anyway. How has today's practice been? For a start I did 20x 45sec gestures, then 20x 30sec skeletons, then I did some heads (I haven't been doing for a long time and I'm losing my touch) then some imaginary hands, and finally 20x 45sec hand studies. Hands have been improving

Today, the 99th day in a row, what did I achieve? For a start I did design-work, creative work and practice. Let me digest that. I did design work, creative (loose) work and practice.  I started early in the morning thanks to my good ol' trustie insomnia. I did some exploratory - initially automatic doodles that had interesting aspects. I love drawing light values with a single brush. In this instance I drew a mountainous landscape covered with snow and two huts; overall quite okay; I love most the flatness of the snow-color and some plays with middle-ground and background contrast (I was swapping light and shadow on the planes).  I like the fact that I included trees, something that I'm always very condescending towards.  The second semi-automatic drawing has nice line and gives the impression that there is a city of strange buildings. Later on I did some ideation on the acorn theme. Here, I  like how I did some inverse concepts (white on dark). Finally the daily practice was

It's feeling very monotonous; Admittedly I don't have the time to really paint these days; I'm too busy and I've been too busy for the last 9 months with only a one month interval in between. Hmm, it's true, I've been working 16h a day for weeks in a row with only short intervals in between. I'm not dead busy last month or so - merely 5-12h a day. But that is a lot too. Anyway, no time to complain, I'm hoping to get to bed early today. So here's some design stuff I was doing today. For a start I'm happy that a long project is coming to its end. I'm worried that the final results is not going to justify the scope of the process but well what can be done! The other good stuff is that I'm putting to good use these kaleidoscopic symmetry guides and my mind is getting used the negative space and shape completion - gestalt stuff! Then I moved onto the daily practice of gestures, postures and hands. The postures are satisfying; they are readable