Guess who is a dummy and forgot to post content for months? Me. Please enjoy the sketch dumps! 

7. Exercise - Doodling

Use as: can be both, but more suited as an exercise

Purposes:
- increasing focus and endurance
- learning to draw details
- helps learning to draw texture (which will be very important later on)

How to:
There are basically two steps that need to be repeated:

1. prepare a template page full of boxes
   
2. fill out each box with different forms, patterns, shapes or little drawings 
   

Tips:
- the overhand grip will not work in this case (I believe this at least) stick to the tripod grip
- do the lines in both directions; you will need to be able to do this later! (you can actually see that I make more mistakes in the counterclockwise direction)
- you are not drawing a beautiful picture, so don’t focus on perfect forms, focus on fluent strokes, but try to keep the patterns in the same size and form as possible
- relax!

My humble experience so far:
I’m bad at this. I get bored too fast and reall don’t like drawing little details. So basically this is a perfect workout for me! I could imagine this to be a great exercise for many. This does indeep help you focus and endurance, which are both very important if you want to draw good texture (e.g. skin, fur, gras, leaves on a tree…) later. 

With digital drawing tools, this might not be too important, but as soon as you take a pencil and try to draw a picture with a grassfield on half of the canvas you’ll know what I mean. 

I also believe that if you get better in doodling you will also be able to draw faces better, as they tend to have a lots of fine lines wich make the difference between recognizable faces or weird 3-year-old-face-drawing.

Conclusion:
A workout for everyone - can work as a warm-up as well, but I’m not relaxed enough for such a tourture ;)

6. Exercise - Circles between two lines

Use as: can be both, but more suited as an exercise

Purposes:
- loosening the shoulder
- preparation for proper sketching
- learning to sketch circles
- preparation for drawing circles in one stroke
- learning to use different grip variations (all art teacher tutorials urge you to draw with the overhand grip for fluent lines without interruptions)

How to:
There are basically two steps that need to be repeated:

1. prepare a template page with horizontal lines with different distances from each other 
   
2. draw seveal circles within two lines (the circles can overlap, but try to draw real circles and not ovals, also make sure that the circles touche the lines but don’t cross them; try drawing the circlesin both directions and try using both the tripod grip and overhand grip)
   

Tips:
- the overhand grip works way better, the bigger the forms get and most tutors insist that you should only focus on it if you are a beginner or want to improve your sketching skills (I find it hard to do small circles and lines with the overhand grip, so I tend to switch to the tripod grip when the forms get too small, but if you can do it all the way through you should try to stick with it)
- do the lines in both directions; you will need to be able to do this later! (you can actually see that I make more mistakes in the counterclockwise direction)
- you are not drawing a beautiful picture, so don’t focus on perfect forms, focus on fluent strokes out of your shoulder, but still make sure to draw circles and not ovals
- try to touch the lines as good as possible but don’t be too slow, you need to draw all the circles in one stroke if possible

My humble experience so far:
Nice focusing exercise. I’m really bad at drawing fluent circles, so this exercise is like hell for me. But I believe if I get myself to do this exercise freaquently my circles will improve eventually. So, yes I would recommend this work-out.

Conclusion:
Good cirlce workout - does not necessarely work as a warm-up

5. Exercise - Ovals in circles

Use as: can be both, but more suited as a warm-up or exercise for real beginners

Purposes:
- loosening the shoulder
- preparation for proper sketching
- learning to sketch ovals and circles
- preparation for drawing circles in one stroke
- learning to use different grip variations (all art teacher tutorials urge you to draw with the overhand grip for fluent lines without interruptions)

How to:
There are basically two steps that need to be repeated:

1. prepare a template page full of different sizes of perfect circles
   
2. fill in the circles with several ovals; ovals should be facing all sides and should touch but not cross the circles; try drawing the ovals in both directions and try using both the tripod grip and overhand grip
   

Tips:
- the overhand grip works way better, the bigger the forms get and most tutors insist that you should only focus on it if you are a beginner or want to improve your sketching skills (I find it hard to do small circles and lines with the overhand grip, so I tend to switch to the tripod grip when the forms get too small, but if you can do it all the way through you should try to stick with it)
- do the lines in both directions; you will need to be able to do this later! (you can actually see that I make more mistakes in the counterclockwise direction)
- you are not drawing a beautiful picture, so don’t focus on perfect forms, focus on fluent strokes out of your shoulder
- try to touch the circle lines as good as possible but don’t be too slow, you need to draw all the ovals in one stroke if possible

My humble experience so far:
I liked this as a warm-up, similar to the “circles and ovals in triangles” exercise I was writing about before. I wouldn’t necessarely say that my drawing abilities will increase by doing this, but my mind, hand, arm and shoulder loosen up while doing it and that helps focusing on learing any actual skills later on. I will definitely do this one as a 

Conclusion:
Good and easy warm-up; altvernative to the  "circles and ovals in triangles” exercise

As it often happens, my enthusiasm and satisfaction with my sketches drops by the end of semester due to exhaustion :’] But here are some I’m still somewhat satisfied with. Bonus 1-minute maned wolf sketches from my own photos.

Me? Posting consistently? Psssh.

Anyway, fave sketching pics from the last few weeks. As always, based on sketchdaily & quickposes references. Most are 5-10 minutes. And yes, some are just me testing out different brushes, ha.

Sketch course, week 3: exaggeration/emphasis

All 5-7 minutes this time around :vc

Taking a sketch course this semester again, technically it’s the same I took last year, but hey, this time it’s online so I get to work on my digital sketching.

Speed is the bane of my art existence, so I like the challenge given by the course - we’re given 1, 3, 5 or 7 minutes tops - and I don’t get to “cheat” since we just move on to the next picture, ha. The second row is pretty interesting to me since it’s just me using some extra time to redraw the same pose faster, then even faster, it’s kinda curious to see where my brain goes when I don’t get to think too much about anatomy and whatnot :vc

All photos used as references are from SketchDaily and Quickposes.