What I have been doing a lot of last week

Last week I signed up for a class on "object drawing" with the intent that this could help me draw voluminous things, I bought some play-doh and started making simple shapes, sticking them on each other and turning them around. Very much in the spirit of the first Preston Blair lesson where you draw on an egg and draw it from different angles.

I drew the simple, general shapes first, imagining the object in 3D, even drawing out the surfaces I didn't see




Also some some volume-feeling hatching


And some other ways

Some of what I've done these last couple of weeks

I've not been doing all that much construction these last couple of weeks, though I've done some:


,

The inked one is from a drawing by Giuseppe Ferarro, by the way, I've been following his blog here: http://giuseppeferrario.canalblog.com/

Previously, I think my way of working has been to start out trying to draw one thing, not making it, but seeing mid process that I have the opportunity to draw something else that's nice and doing that.

That way, I can make some good looking drawings, but it's not that great if there's actually one specific thing that I know I need to draw. I don't think anyone ever gets to the point where they have full control and can just visualize something and then draw exactly that, and I don't think I would want that either (because of the creative possibilities of chance) – but I've realized that I do need to get closer.

To that end, I've started redrawing:

The grey lines are the original, as you can see, the second tries aren't perfect, but they're better, some of them a lot better.

Tried at one of the covers as well:
Looks like one of those first attempts above, doesn't it? That's because it is, I will make a second jab at this some time this week.

Finally, another charming character I've made: