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A Year of Studies, 2016 Edition

by | Dec 29, 2016

General Studies

For me, 2016 was the year of possibilities. In additional to leaping for my dreams, I committed to self-direction studies. Listening to Crimson Daggers’ podcast convinced me that art school doesn’t matter. If you push yourself and you’re hungry, you’ll learn. “Go back to the fundamentals,” is the advice I kept hearing. So, my goal was to do a film still study every day.

2016-studies

The problem: I could churn out an nearly exact replica and learn nothing. My bulk study approach wasn’t working. I needed more critical thinking. I needed to emphasize the fundamentals.

Back to the drawing board, I devised a fundamental-oriented program. 3 studies a week based on 1 fundamental.

Below you will find 15 weeks of studies done in this method.

Week 01

Fundamental: Lighting

Film Genre: Fantasy

Week01-01
Week01-02 Week01-03Week 02

Fundamental: Value

Film Genre: Historical Period (Medieval)

Week02-01-step3 Week02-02 Week02-03Week 03

Fundamental: Perspective

Film Genre: Crime/Thriller

Week03-01 Week03-02 Week03-03Week 04

Fundamental: Composition

Film Genre: Scifi

Week04-01 Week04-02 Week04-03Week 05

Fundamental: Color

Film Genre: Music Video

Week05-01 Week05-02 Week05-03Week 06

Fundamental: Anatomy

Film Genre: Chick Flick

Week06-01 Week06-02 Week06-03Week 07

Fundamental: Color

Film Genre: Scifi

Week07-01 Week07-02 Week07-03Week 08

Fundamental: Anatomy

Film Genre: Fantasy

Week08-01-03Week 09

Fundamental: Value

Film Genre: Post Apocalyptic

Week09-01 Week09-02 Week09-03Week 10

Fundamental: Composition

Film Genre: Superhero

Week10-01 Week10-02 Week10-03

Week 11

Fundamental: Perspective

Film Genre: Fantasy

Week11-01 Week11-02 Week11-03

Week 12

Fundamental: Lighting

Film Genre: Post Apocalyptic

Week12-01 Week12-02 Week12-03

Week 13

Fundamental: Composition

Film Genre: Scifi

Week13-01 Week13-02 Week13-03Week 14

Fundamental: Color

Film Genre: Historical Period

Week14-01 Week14-02 Week14-03Week 15

Fundamental: Lighting

Film Genre: Fantasy

Week15-02Week15-01 Week15-03

This worked much better, and I noticed that focusing on one fundamental helped a lot. However, there were certain fundamentals that people needed more work on generally. And even focusing on one fundamental, it was still easy to mentally check out and not internalize the learning.

Inktober Studies

We took a break for Inktober. Instead, we did a progression of topics meant to harmonize.

  1. Simple anatomy
  2. Foreshortened anatomy
  3. Perspective
  4. Foreshortened anatomy & perspective

See my whole #inktober series.

Inktober Week 1: Simple Anatomy

14533678_1765619003705836_6703690972569534464_n14561938_522362351287016_4331872953542115328_n   14719558_1127238927344800_7932624567862820864_n

Inktober Week 2: Foreshortened Anatomy

14701102_231859647228811_3619982768475209728_n14583275_612840718894082_1882291377639784448_n14714575_221066851671324_8091064506957955072_n

Inktober Week 3: Perspective

14718518_1327781000567392_8192370424554717184_n 14705209_581525928720612_8040974017076658176_n  14583296_350592161944430_8439657311265357824_n

Inktober Week 4: Foreshortened Anatomy & Perspective

14718023_1132297590190051_7588734593830748160_n14701193_183449518727799_5359183574027206656_n  14677346_973410759434397_2341897206669246464_n

Week 16 through 21

After Inktober, I revised the study program again. Even focusing on a fundamental, I found I was trying to recreate the scenes exactly. I wanted these studies to push my critical thinking. I restructured the program to include one, three-step study per week. We’d focus on the most commonly needed fundamentals only: perspective, anatomy, and color.

This study method is explained in more detail on the #StillStudying post.

Week 16: Anatomy, Fighting

Week16-01-goal Week16-02

Week 17: Color, Dusk & Dawn

Week17

Week 18: Anatomy, Backs

Week18

Week 19: Perspective, One-Point

Week19

Week 20: Anatomy, Kissing

Week20

Week 21: Anatomy, Dancing

Week21

Week 22: Color, Magenta & Teal

Week22

Miscellaneus Additional Studies

Throughout the year, I participated in some study prompts from various art groups. Most of these were done before the start of #StillStudying.

Portraits

20160530-BWPortraits

Disney Realism

20160523-Disney

Virtual Plein Air

20160515-Landscape

Vehicle in Perspective

20160319-Car-Study

Hair

20160311-Hair-Studies

Water

20160306-Water_study

Indoor Virtual Plein Air

20160229-Virtual-Plein-Air-Study

Virtual Plein Air

20160221-Rock-Study

Light on Skin

20160206-Skin-Studies

Glass

20160131-Glass-Study

Scales

20160123-Scale-Studies

Quickposes

20160716-QuickPoses

Fur

20160123-Fur-Studies

Clouds

20160119-Cloud-Studies

Crystal (Garnet, Pearl, Amethyst)

20160116-Crystal-Studies

Clothing/Fabric

20160109-Fabric-Studies

In total, I completed 114 studies in 2016. Not bad. Let’s see if I can do better in 2017!
If you enjoyed these studies and you’d like to join, please check out my channel for more info.

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Stevie

Illustrator of dreamy things & storyteller ★ Witchy / androgyny / light & color ★ Creator of #WeatherwaxCoven ★ (she/her)