These 5 things will improve your sketching

[@Ty-1452]

What do you mean by "reducing the contrast of the reference you are using" ?! I really like what you said about not listening to music and getting distracted.

[@SKYL001]

Thank you for watching the video!The music big is a BIG one personally, I just feel it has been distracting for me cause I make tons of errors. And about the contrast bit, what I meant was editing your reference on a phone/computer and bringing down the "contrast" property. It's basically a slider which would reduce the Values of the darker areas and bring it closer to greyish values. . It's something I do when I'm not using charcoal because with charcoal it's real easy to get dark. But when working with graphite you really have to build it up layer by layer. You can't just go with a higher grade pencil and jam in the dark parts right away. Plus reducing the contrast kind of "washes out" each part of the image. So they all change relatively to one another. And these values are heavily impacted with these relations. It's just an easier time that way in my opinion if you are pushing for quality over quantity. I definitely think you have to push for quantity when you start out instead of just being stuck on that one piece. This is NOT what I'd recommend for actual realism tho lol for that you have to give it time and a LOT of patience to get that wide spectrum of values. Realism artists have my respect for this reason lol cause you need to have that whole range when doing that. But to just convey form of a portrait? Yep. You can easily get away with values which work well in relationship to each other.

[@Ty-1452]

@@SKYL001 Thank you so much for such a thorough reply. It’s very helpful !

[@SKYL001]

@@Ty-1452 no problem man! glad I could help

[@Ty-1452]

​@@SKYL001 I almost forgot to ask, how many hours do you practice a day or a week ?

[@SKYL001]

@@Ty-1452 honestly man it depends. I switch between studies, digital stuff and works I wanna post on instagram. But I will tell you this, give it an honest hour or two a day. I try to aim for that for the conventional studies a day. It will bring drastic improvements! I'd be down to give critiques whenever I can on Instagram if you are serious. 😄

[@rac--]

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