# I have come a long way...



## Equusketch (Jun 16, 2009)

these are some drawings I did towards the end of 2007...


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## Equusketch (Jun 16, 2009)

some random stuff in 2008 and early 2009, the early stages of graphite and some colored pencil;


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## Equusketch (Jun 16, 2009)

And finally, some recent stuff in the past 6 months...


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## Domino13011 (Aug 10, 2009)

wow thoes are great


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## JustDressageIt (Oct 4, 2007)

You know Liz, I have to giggle a little bit... I would give my left arm (  I'm right-handed) to draw anything near the quality of your first sketches. You are blessed with an amazing talent.


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## midwestgirl89 (Jul 7, 2009)

This is a great idea~
Like you, I've been drawing as long as I can remember. My mom and uncle both had the talent and I was always begging her to draw a horse for me. But when I'd ask, she'd reply...Why don't you try drawing one yourself? So I was always encouraged to draw. And while my mom was gifted with the art of animals, my uncle had the gift of drawing people. Sadly, he died in 2000 and this past year I've been trying to commemorate him by working to develop drawing people...so I can think that I've inherited something from him.
I started out with only #2 pencils and used them for the longest time. Then I got a graphite/charcoal kit for a 8th grade graduation gift. And I was hooked. I've never really gotten into colored pencils much and painting is something I'd like to get into, but haven't had the time. It's so much easier to sit down with a sketchbook than to get out all the painting supplies...but it's all a matter of how lazy I'm feeling. 
One of the things that helped me the most was during my sophomore year in high school in art class. Our teacher gave every student a sketchbook and our final at the end of the year was to turn it in with every page filled. So that really encouraged me to draw consistently. I'm sure he'd laugh looking back because 75% of all my drawings were of horses. 
Oh wait-I have to go to work (where did the time go???)but I get off at 11 and will finish up the commentary and post my older drawings.
Be back in a few hours!


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## jadeewood (Feb 18, 2009)

Your just amazing.


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## Plains Drifter (Aug 4, 2009)

Liz..your just amazing! I wish I had just half your talent. About the only horse I could ever draw would be a stick horse. <sigh> Your work is beautiful. I think one of my all time favorites has to be the very last one.


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## Jillyann (Mar 31, 2009)

Those are ALL amazing!!


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## kchfuller (Feb 1, 2008)

wow it is so cool to see the progression.... you are very talented!


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## Kayty (Sep 8, 2009)

Gorgeous work Liz!


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## Kayty (Sep 8, 2009)

Here's a few of mine from whatever I've been able to dig up! 
I started drawing animals 'realistic' when I was 10, when I started having some lessons with one of the mum's at my primary school.
I started selling commission work at 15. 

First coloured pencil horse, 10 yrs









My QHxappy mare, Foxy. Done when I was 13.









First commisison at 15.









When I was 16









First charcoal drawing at 16.









Charcoal commission at 16.









Dog commission at 16









Royal Show entry of a Kookaburra at 16









Another royal show entry at 16









My uncles racehorse, 17









Discovered soft pastels, 17


















More next post... I have way too many!!


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## Kayty (Sep 8, 2009)

My year 12 major art piece, 18




























And now



























Half finished drawing, two cocker spaniels


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## juniormylove (Aug 28, 2008)

WOW! I'd love to get to the level of your early drawings, haha. Ah, well. I'm a self-taught 15 yr old. I guess I'll get there someday.

I think what's helped me the most is taking breaks. Every time I've taken a break, I've come back better and better. I started out with oddly shaped colored drawings...took a break. Came back with semi-decent line drawings..took a break. Started this odd smudgy shading..took a break. Started for real shading, did that for a loong time, then took a break. Went back to line drawings and scribbles for a while. Came back with a fairly good shaded drawing...took a break. Then, just earlier this week, I drew again for the first time in months. And again, it's better then what I was doing.

Artwork:

Line drawings, probably from about 6/7 grade:

















8th grade so...two years ago:








(one of my first times shading an entire drawing, after i passed the smudgey stage)








Practicing my shading in 8th grade, both during class hahaha

__
Sensitive content, not recommended for those under 18
Show Content


















don't have any of my first REAL shading...but...
One from about 6-8 months ago:









Experimenting with pen:









Trying full bodies:









Focusing on shading/eyes more:

















Last week:









Yeah, I'd say I've improved a bit. I have to brag about my eyes - they used to be HORRIBLE! and in my latest drawing, they actually look like EYES! (probably because i have horse eyes drawn in the margins of all my school papers hah) If nothing else, my anatomy has gotten better!

PS - sorry for the overload of pics!


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## Kayty (Sep 8, 2009)

oops hit enter before i finished what i was writing...


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## Kayty (Sep 8, 2009)

You've got some really lovely work in there juniormylove. Being self taught is, in my opinion, the best way to progress with your art. I had some lessons at school when I was 10, and a year later I started to develop my own style and quit lessons. Taking regular lessons does give you some good ideas on different techniques, but once you start developing your own way of doing things, I find it better to just work on your own and then ask others for a bit of guidance in the process on what they would change etc. And find this guidance best comes from the pet owners as they know the animal best. 

You've got an excellent eye for tones, you have achieved a good level of tonal value in most of your drawings, which is something that most people struggle with when they start out. You want to balance the tones across the drawing, even if you can't see it in the drawing itself. 10 being the darkest, 1 being lightest. So if you have a 10 say in a corner of the eye, you want to put a 10 say a little in the nostril, ear or shadow under the jaw. If you don't balance these tones you will end up with a top/bottom heavy drawing


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## Plains Drifter (Aug 4, 2009)

Kayty..just amazing!!! JML, I love your pen drawing!


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## Pidge (Sep 5, 2009)

wow once i get my new pics up im gonna have to dig through my photo bucket acount for something old lol this is a great thread! Nice job everyone!


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## Gidji (Dec 19, 2008)

WOW. Talented  I wish I could draw. I just can't draw though, does practice really help those who are artisticlly (sp?) challenged?
Kayty, your work is amazing. You really have talent, you can see it right from your first drawings, right down to your last drawings.


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## midwestgirl89 (Jul 7, 2009)

Well...I didn't make it back as quick as I'd hoped. Whoops!
Anyways-here's some of my older things 5 1/2 years ago during sophomore year.


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## midwestgirl89 (Jul 7, 2009)

And a few more:

I'm running short on time again (is there ever enough???) so I will be back in the beginning of next week to finish up my extended post =)


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## fuzzyfeet (Aug 29, 2009)

Some of my early works, I was probably around 9-10 when I did these:


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## fuzzyfeet (Aug 29, 2009)

And me now:


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## toadflax (Jul 14, 2009)

Liz, what a great thread, this is really fun seeing how everyone's progressed. Some beautiful work, early and late, too.
Unfortunately they didn't make cameras back when I first started drawing...


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## 1dog3cats17rodents (Dec 7, 2007)

Wow! This thread really shows that talent is natural, it can be improved but not learned. Like fuzzy feet- your 9/10 year old drawings are 1000X better than anything I could ever do


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## toadflax (Jul 14, 2009)

The oldest thing I could find without digging around for college stuff in the scary dark and cold attic, done when I was 22 and not sure what direction my drawing was going to take. I played around a lot with color, fantasy scenes and pointillism.


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## toadflax (Jul 14, 2009)

one more--I used to work like this all the time, now almost never, but it was very relaxing and kind if fun.


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## anrz (Dec 21, 2008)

toadflax, that second picture is incredibly cool! I love it .


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## toadflax (Jul 14, 2009)

Thanks, anrz, it really was fun to do, 20 or so years ago...I used to create these fanciful little mini-scenes with that technique too, but somewhere along the line I shifted to the somber, serious pencil work and stopped, um, playing, I guess you could say. I still get excited when I see a rack full of felt tip markers, though--.


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## gogirl46 (Oct 18, 2009)

Oh man, I can see my early horse drawings in my head and I dunno if I want to show people them


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## Equusketch (Jun 16, 2009)

Wow Toadflax...pointilism, is that the same as stiple? Either way I tried that once. It took me FOREVER!!! I am way too impatient for that. 

Anyway, I was at my folks house the other day and found an old sketch book my aunt gave me in highschool along with the prisma color pencils. It was fun going through the drawings. It's interesting because I think my artwork was better back when I was in highschool than it was in 2007 when I got back into drawing. Of course I drew A LOT way back then, mostly with the colored pencils. Graphite work has only come into play in the past year. 

Anyway, just thought I'd share some of my drawings from my highschool days. I never took art classes, but I hd friends who did, so I learned from them. There is one drawing I did of Leonardo Di Caprio right after Titanic came out...wow I feel old...lol. But still I think one of the very few human drawings that came out half way decent. 

There is another drawing I did with a black colored pencil that started out good, but I left unfinished due to some serious proportional flaws. 

Enjoy!


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## xLaurenOscarx (Aug 11, 2009)

wow the last one is class with all the horses heads!


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## toadflax (Jul 14, 2009)

Lauren, Gaelic?

And yep, Liz, pointillism, stipple, dots...I used to quite like it, it was almost meditative in a way.


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## Equusketch (Jun 16, 2009)

toadflax said:


> Lauren, Gaelic?
> 
> And yep, Liz, pointillism, stipple, dots...I used to quite like it, it was almost meditative in a way.


 
well, what's meditative for one is insanity for another...lol. 

Here is the stple drawing I did (though I may just do another one day):


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## toadflax (Jul 14, 2009)

ooh, it's cool, though, isn't it? That's a really nice drawing, and it's always so fascinating that it's just a bunch of dots but you can still get the minutest details. 
Well, meditative or not, you don't see me doing it now, do you--?


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## jackieebitu (Aug 1, 2009)

wow 
you are actually such a great artist  
i wish i could draw like you!


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## xLaurenOscarx (Aug 11, 2009)

toadflax said:


> *Lauren, Gaelic?*
> 
> And yep, Liz, pointillism, stipple, dots...I used to quite like it, it was almost meditative in a way.


Gaelic football? What do you mean?


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## toadflax (Jul 14, 2009)

Hm. Lauren, when you first posted, the words after the little poem in your signature showed up in a foreign language, and it looked like Gaelic to me, which I found rather unusual to say the least. Now I see it's in English and to do with, um, toe fungus, making me look more than a little foolish--:?.


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## xLaurenOscarx (Aug 11, 2009)

toadflax said:


> Hm. Lauren, when you first posted, the words after the little poem in your signature showed up in a foreign language, and it looked like Gaelic to me, which I found rather unusual to say the least. Now I see it's in English and to do with, um, toe fungus, making me look more than a little foolish--:?.


 
lol sorry! yeah its Irish Gaeilge Gaelic is the game lol
I'm Irish so i decided to put it in Irish
lol yeah about that! there was a game duck duck goose on this and the person after me put goose so she told me to change the signature to that lol


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## toadflax (Jul 14, 2009)

Ha! So I'm not a crazy person hallucinating Gaelic after all! Pretty awesome really, even if it is about toenail fungus---you have a term for toenail fungus in Irish?


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## xLaurenOscarx (Aug 11, 2009)

toadflax said:


> Ha! So I'm not a crazy person hallucinating Gaelic after all! Pretty awesome really, even if it is about toenail fungus---you have a term for toenail fungus in Irish?


nope lol
how did you recognise it?
lol yeah! i have to keep it up for a week then i get to take it down lol
em not really.. well i dont know it lol


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## toadflax (Jul 14, 2009)

I LOVE traditional (and some not exactly traditional, like Celtic punk) Scottish & Irish music, so I see Gaelic in print a lot as a result, it's pretty unique-looking to an American eye.


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## xLaurenOscarx (Aug 11, 2009)

toadflax said:


> I LOVE traditional (and some not exactly traditional, like Celtic punk) Scottish & Irish music, so I see Gaelic in print a lot as a result, it's pretty unique-looking to an American eye.


aw right cool
yeah Gaeilge's pretty cool especialy when your on holidays and people dunno what your saying lol


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## toadflax (Jul 14, 2009)

Do you know it from growing up speaking it or did you learn it in school?


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## xLaurenOscarx (Aug 11, 2009)

I've been learning it in school since i was about 5.
no one speaks it in the place were im from.


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## toadflax (Jul 14, 2009)

Well, it's beautiful to look at as well as to listen to. Great to have access to it from such a young age. (Thanks Liz for letting us steal your post for a little.)


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## xLaurenOscarx (Aug 11, 2009)

yeah its a nice language. its nice and easy going.
sorry for robbing your post liz!


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## Equusketch (Jun 16, 2009)

toadflax said:


> Well, it's beautiful to look at as well as to listen to. Great to have access to it from such a young age. (Thanks Liz for letting us steal your post for a little.)


 
Ha Ha Ha...no worries. It is interesting, plus it keeps the forum alive.


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