Old Figure Practices (Sketchbook 00 to 04) (Patreon)

Many people have asked me what kind of practices I did when started learning to draw (drawing seriously at least), so I dusted off some of my old sketchbooks that I used for practice.

This is one example of studies I made… quick figure sketches. I think these studies were the more useful for me, that's why I always recommend them to people who ask me (I'll show other more random types of studies later).

If you do something similar to this, a good tip I can give is reviewing sketches after finishing a session (or some time after). The important thing is paying attention what is working in them and what isn't so you can learn from them.

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Note 01. I numbered the covers from #00 to #10, and each pic above is a notebook (picked up only some interesting pages on each). All notebooks are continuous in study progress: the #00 notebook have the first excersices in figure practice I did ever; while the #10 the last ones.

Note 02. Sketches in them vary from 5 seconds to 20 minutes and many are done in a single session. All 10 notebooks were made in a period of 2 years more or less and have between 6–10 years old, but didn't recorded the exact dates on these.

Note 03. I put some notes on them about what I was practicing or thinking at the time. Red are mistakes, and blue are things I consider are correct.

Note 04. At some parts I made them almost daily, others I skipped months between sessions because I didn't feel like doing them at the moment. Also I wasn't conscious of my own progress until checked them again after long time had passed. Just mention it because I know many people stress a lot over doing these kind of excersices. They are not indispensable for learning drawing per se, but is a useful tool that can help learning some aspects more quickly.

Note 05. This post is Part I. Part II will have the other half of sketchbooks.