Periodically, I identify areas or subjects of drawing that I’d like to improve at. Most recently, it’s bears. The resulting action is usually me taking a few days to sit with it and grind through a lot of drawings—though most of this never sees the light of day.
The thing about this practice though, is that it’s usually relegated to some throwaway sketchbook that I promptly forget about…whereas I’ve always thought it would be more valuable if I could collect the learnings so I could revisit them to get a refresher. Below are the few from yesterday (July 31, 2023):
There are quick drawings from frames of a National Geographic youtube video{:target="_blank"} on grizzly bears. The commentary was fun! I currently struggle with the face of the bear, and animals with snouts in general. There’s something I haven’t quite grasped regarding this form in 3-dimensional space, and will need to spend more pencil-hours unwrapping. It’s hard for me to understand and translate it visually in it’s most realistic form, so naturally I struggle even more to push the expression and add appeal to the character. Today, I’d like to take studies down from actual drawn bears (perhaps the Brother Bear animated feature) as reference and see how they break it down. Also, a 360 turnaround of the bear head.
Otherwise, gestures of the body feel relatively solid. It’s similar to elephants, which I have spent a lot of time drawing at the LA Zoo.