Studying Leyendecker - How Do You Study?
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- Опубликовано: 15 окт 2024
- Let's do a fun study of the one and only Joseph Christian (J.C.) Leyendecker!
What kind of studies do you prefer: more specific technique studies, or overall master studies of complete pieces?
James Gurney's "Leyendecker's Method" blog post as read on this episode: gurneyjourney.b...
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I stayed in JCs house in 98 while I wrote a screenplay. He is also my fav artist since the 70s. 6 millionaires were ready to put up money. The day before 911. Lost funding. Im considering a new push.
I have the exact same issue you do with proportion. I can't just sit there and like...conceptualize the space between things. I like to look at the picture holistically to solve a problem. Recently, I've started doing smaller studies so that proportion is easier for me to grasp. Not even whole pieces anymore. It helps me to write out a goal for the studies too. Leyendecker is actually my favorite to study from. His use of brush strokes and light and shadow are so dynamic. I'd love some of that in my style too.
You also make a good point I agree with on leyendecker vs Rockwell: Leyendecker's work has a timelessness to it. Rockwell definitely has a more Americana style that makes you think of a certain time frame. Both are good! But personally, I prefer timelessness.
Thank you for the awesome comment! It's funny you mentioned doing more focused, smaller-scale studies to train proportions and spacial awareness, as that's literally on my list of 2022 resolutions to do! Taking a bite-size approach, focusing on the single problem, will be a fantastic way to get over the fear of failure or having those issues "hold a piece back", so to speak.
For faces the vertical proportions are always the same. The eyes are in the center. A little bit above are the eyebrows.
Halfway from the eybrows to the chin is the bottom of the nose and halfway from the bottom of the nose to the chin is the bottom of the lip.
These landmarks are consistently the same and if you check, even used by Leyendecker in the painting you are studying.
Instead of the guess the angle and copy your guess game that is very popular in art schools at the moment, he very likely usea a more sculptural / constructive type of drawing.
What made him extraordinary is his great skill of designing the shapes he uses to represent certain eleemnts. Like the hair or the planes of the faces or anatomy.
For me good drawing means a mix of observation and knowledge and more correct knowledge will improve and change how you perceive when you observe.
Sculptural drawing was the preferred method from the Renaissance onwards for the longest time.
The most famous teacher around Leyendeckers time was probably Loomis, at least in the US and his teachings are still very popular in the entertainment and fantasy art community, who also need to invent figures for their work.
Other than the more natural proportions mentioned above, Loomis used a more idealised proportions of the figure in his approach of constructive drawing.
You can search for "the famous art course" pdf online. It is a collection of teachings of famous Illustrators of that era.
You could try to do some quick proportional studies as warmup for like 10-15 mins, which would be much more managable and probably not as bad as doing it for a couple of hours
also dorian has an accuracy guide that covers most comparative measuring methods that could also be worthwhile to look at
Ohhhh those are great ideas, I need to check out the Dorian guides for sure. I'm just a grumpy grumperton when it comes to doing studies that aren't part of a "bigger piece", because it feels like schoolwork LOL
Lovely video! This month i have decided to study leyndecker myself and this video gave some great insight.
Thank you so much, Sorina! I'm glad you found it helpful, I'm loving Leyendecker studies!
I recently studied sakamoto shinichi way of drawing eyes and mimicing pencil with clip studio, also alphonse mucha on colour, both were super difficult, but sakamoto's even more so because he uses a personal library of self made clipart to quicken his process, eg, if he draws a hand and draws it well, he will save the hand as a file to be dropped and pasted in his works, i do not have said library, so doing all this from scratch was tedious to say the least but i LOVE the finished result
That sounds amazing! And Sakamoto "saving his library" of well-done assets is a GENIUS move, I don't know why that never resonated as something someone could do, ha! I love when putting in the effort and work pays off, so I can't wait to see your Sakamoto-method and the results!
@@ArtOfWesGardner thanks!! it's coming along well, honestly i was floored when i watched the documentary, he's lightyears ahead there, making the pencil effect without any special brushes and just a bit of visual deception (he goes back over his lines in thin eraser, so from far away the strokes look grey, textured and rough like pencil) a bit like impressionism. I've made my own shortcuts too messing with settings. I can see why his work takes so long 😭
yes omg!! i honestly only discovered his work recently and his style is just so beautiful. i don’t know very much about him or anything behind his works so thanks for this vid!!
One of the best ever, in my opinion! I need to get back to doing more studies of him soon!
For strong shape design, looking at art you like that has more cartoon or animation motivations is often a good place to start, in addition to Leyendecker. Try to find artists who display appealing, clear, and decisive contour changes in their shapes. Illustrators with more angular shapes make this easier to spot, like Tony Infante or Coran Kizer Stone, but I've seen plenty with more rounded shapes as well, like Nurzhan Bekkaliyev or Gloss. People should check those artists out if they're unfamiliar.
And thanks for the video, Wes. I followed along with you, which is always fun. Need to do more!
Thank you tons, Chromo! I've added the artists you've mentioned to my "must study" list! Thank you for the awesome recommendations as well, animation and cartoons in general have a fantastic understanding of shape language and what makes "impactful" shapes. I'll definitely do more, I've learned a ton!
@@ArtOfWesGardner For sure! "Impactful shapes" is a great way to think of it and makes me think of Mike Mattesi's term "forceful shapes" which is essentially describing the same idea. His whole "Force" series of books and videos are great learning tools.
James Gurney = Color and Light / Imaginative Realism books.
Trying to study Leyendecker for a project currently and this is super helpful! Also, felt the proportion woes... I am also trying to take some action and impove there lmao.
Dude, amazing video!!! I love Leyendecker`s work too, he is my next subject of study.
One tip I can give you, specially on human faces. It works with everything else but mostly with human faces... Okay here it goes: Everytime you decided where your first shape goes, you must keep that one as your constant, and keep coming back to this shape for spacial reference. As you draw other shapes you will notice how they will fall into place almost automatically
It's funny that leyendecker is one of the artists that you should study if you want to feel bad about yourself, he's actually my favorite artist to study! To this day I think one of my master studies of his is the best thing I've ever done, lol.
As for practicing proportion; I generally tend to do my studies as a kind of warmup when I don't know what to draw, so maybe that will help you? Or fast life studies whenever I'm stuck sitting down somewhere for a while (generally in class for me, but if you're ever just stuck waiting somewhere that might also work?) I find when I'm working fast my proportions are either surprisingly accurate or nowhere near correct, there is no inbetween.
dear wesley !! i tottally agree with your point of view .....during the video ,i was thinking of the book 'steal like artist....;with photoshop we are be like musician ,put things 'stolen' and 'remake -remodel'.........;to finish i'll quote jean cocteau ' to create it's to put you in front of a masterpece ,and it's in the way you can't do that you are original'' me i'm working like music producer using using everything and make it mine......because you are what you love . a french who admire your way of painting and thinking
9:30 -- "Get your favorite comic books."
Uh oh.... For some reason I immediately thought about Rob Liefeld
LOL, hey, it's a fantastic way to learn how to...uh...hide feet?
Leyendecker always seemed related to pen and ink legend Franklin Booth, they have a similar hatching technique. Maybe “Graphic Impressionism”?
I got this through recommended and then was shocked to hear Halo 3 ODST music in the background. Art and Halo; the algorithm knows me a bit too well.
Do you have a link for the brushes you used in the Clip Studio Paint part?
Hey there! So it could be one of two sets, as I primarily just use two sets in CLIP. The first is the "FRENDEN Brush Pack", which has like 1,000 brushes at this point, all for about 15 bucks from Ray Frenden's website directly at frenden.myshopify.com/products/clip-studio-800-brush-set
And I also import each of my brushpacks that I make for Photoshop into CLIP, and all of those can be found on my site at www.wesleygardner.com
I hope this helps!
@@ArtOfWesGardner Thank you so much!! I needed these :)
I grew up on Marvel in the early seventies. That and my studies drilled into my head how much we all want to over-homogenize things. Kirby was super-dramatic. Also super-fast. John Buscema rendered things carefully. The drama in his work comes. as often as not, from his scripts: his fifties sword and sandal comics for Western can be better than his Conans. His brother Sal was very designy and loose. His compositions are very dramatic.
I was disturbed by your original shape of her face. Yes her jaw was square in the original. This is Leyendecker. But the verticality of her left cheek before you fixed it seemed to bring her chin forward and I wonder if it would have ended up so big had you made a point of making the cheek more diagonal earlier.
Look at Charles Dana Gibson. There is a relationship between the styles and his masterful use of the fountain pen is a class in using angles to build form. I draw a lot with forty-year-old Speedball pens and you want to make your first marks on scrap paper after you dip because it will blot. But it gives you a good feeling for marks. And exaggerate. Durer copied Mantegna's Battle of the Sea Gods. The women in Durer's copy don't quite fit in. But they are magnificent.
what program are you using?
Hey Jesse, thank you for watching! For the first part of the piece, I'm using CLIP Studio Paint, then we moved over to Rebelle (version 4 at this time, now version 5 is out)
Interesting that the image chosen is atypical for Leyedecker, apart from his particular passion and narrative: a woman. Leyendecker is known for his passion for, and idealization of men. To the point of overt eroticism. And you can't separate the erotic from his appeal--from his method.