If you manage an account for a small business or a personal project, go log into your account right now and back up your work.
Things are getting worse on Twitter by the day and the suspensions are not rumors, they are happening. Please make sure to make copies of things you don’t want to lose forever.
I talked about this on my Twitter already, but it’s especially important to keep hammering in this one major point: this policy applies to the accounts of people who are deceased. Other social media sites have protocols to deal with the dead, and Twitter does not.
Shon Howell was a good friend of mine. He’s better known as King Cheetah, a prolific furry artist that had been active since the 90s. In early 2019, he died from cancer, leaving all of his art and social media accounts abandoned.
Once this policy was announced the other day, I realized what that meant. So I went back to check Shon’s Twitter, and…
Thankfully, I do have a huge archive of all of his work, and I’m in the process of tracking down and preserving anything that’s left. But keep in mind, especially if you’re an artist and use Twitter as your main platform: go somewhere else. Make sure your work is elsewhere. Make sure you can be contacted elsewhere. Twitter clearly has no concern about archiving your posts anymore because Elon fucked things up and seems to be invested in continuing to make it worse.
being a self-taught artist with no formal training is having done art seriously since you were a young teenager
and only finding out that you’re supposed to do warm up sketches every time you’re about to work on serious art when you’re fuckin twenty-five
someone: oh yeah, do this exercise during your warm ups! it’ll help
me: my what
What’s up I have an actual college degree in art and I was never ONCE taught to do warm ups.
when i was in undergrad, it was kind of mentioned in and offhand way that we should do warmups, but we were never shown what that meant. And, y’know, we were young so it didn’t matter so much.
Being older now and having an art job it’s…kind of essential.
So: a quick primer for those of you who are like ‘ok but how do i actually go about doing this warmup thing.’
1) you may be tempted to do ‘a warmup drawing’ which is just a drawing that will take longer than it needed to and probably be frustrating and kind of bad because you didn’t warm up first. It’s tempting but always a trick your brain is playing on you! Do not trust!
2) warmups will vary based on what feels good to you/what task you’re about to do/what motor skills you want to practice. That being said, some good standbys:
a) circles. Just a whole page of circles on whatever drawing surface you’re going to be using, whether that’s your tablet or your sketchbook or a drawing pad on an easel. For these circles you should make sure that you’re drawing from your shoulder and not your wrist. In fact, you want to be drawing from your shoulder rather than your wrist most of the time! forever! your wrist is delicate please preserve it!
In order to ensure that you’re drawing from your shoulder, when you’re holding your pencil or whatever drawing tool you’re using, the only part of your hand that should be touching the drawing surface is part of the last two fingers–some people prefer the finger tips, but I tend to favor the first knuckles. Either way, the fingers should really be ghosting over the surface, providing guidance rather than support.
I usually start with big circles and then go to smaller circles and lines of ellipses, and then try to fit circles and ellipses inside other shapes i’ve already drawn as a precision exercise, but i don’t do that unless i’m feeling loose
b) spirals! i don’t always do spirals, but if i’m stiff and the circles just aren’t cutting it, spirals are a good fall back. I start from the center and work outward, going both clockwise and counterclockwise until i feel comfortable with the whole range of motion. Some people really care about getting perfect spirals but for me it’s all about making sure i’m comfortable with how i’m moving so who really even cares about how the spirals look. Not me!
c) lines! straight lines! in parallel! i do a mix of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal. These are often more from the elbow than the shoulder, especially if I’m working on a smaller surface. For this exercise, I recommend holding the drawing tool perpendicular with the surface
d) connect the dots. This is a precision and accuracy exercise and takes two forms. The first is to draw two dots and then draw a straight line between them. The second is to draw three dots and draw the curve that connects them. This sounds a lot simpler than it is in practice. Take time to ghost over the line you plan to draw before actually committing to your line. (I don’t always remember where I picked up my warm up exercises, but I’m pretty sure I got this one from Scott Robertson. His how to draw and how to render books are very technical but also accessible and worth checking out)
e) cubes, spheres, cones, and cylinders. These help get your brain into a more volumetric space. I draw multiples of each, rotating the forms around, and I’ll often take the time to do some rough shading on at least a few of them
f) spidermans! This one is really good if you’re going to be storyboarding or working on dynamic poses. Just fill a page full of spidermans doing all sorts of acrobatics.
g) beans. I don’t do beans too much anymore, but I know a lot of people like it so I’m mentioning it here. Fill an area with different size bean shapes without lifting your pencil off the paper.
h) short medium and long line repetition. draw a short, medium, and long line on your page, and then draw directly on top of them 8 to 12 times, doing your best to exactly trace what you’ve already drawing. Repeat with a wavy line. I’m bad at this one, which means I probably need to do it more.
And there are lots more options too! Hit up youtube to see what other people recommend, put together your own go-to list, mix it up when you’re getting bored, etc.
This is a long list, I know, but I usually don’t take more than 10 to 15 minutes to warm up, and I can warm up one handed while I’m drinking coffee, so, multitasking hurrah.
Sometimes I’ll advance to a precision warmup and find that I haven’t loosened up enough yet; it’s totally ok to go back to an earlier exercise! Also, all of this has the added benefit of kind of ritualistically getting you into the drawing mode so even if I’m not feeling it before I start, by the time I’ve gotten to the end I’m usually Ready For Drawin’. Brain hacks.
so, yeah! that’s a lot of words, but! Warmups are important! Save your joints, take less advil, do better drawings!
How on earth are you supposed to draw from a sholder? might as well tell me to draw from the foot. It makes no sense
Oh yes this is all the & do I do any of it no I’m dumb lol also WRIST & ARM EXERCISES/STRETCHES guys do them set times please I have some minor issues because of RSI (repetitive stress injury) you don’t want that & I stress the minor some pros will tell you how bad it can get!
Also for the arm thing to train it into you if yoube already formed the bad habit of using the wrist (like we do for writing think of it as a flicking motion of the wrist) get some big paper (cheap newsprint pr any other cheap large pads you can find CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP it’s fine go cheap do it) & either charcoal (can sharpen with a knife & keeps a log lead that way so it’s nice also it works well on cheap stuff cause it’s soft!) But whatever works really and just practice drawing I say with your arm over shoulder be a use it sounds right & sits in my brain better, keep the paper up & away from you if you can if you don’t have an easel it’s okay maybe stand at our table what ever keeps you from resting your arm or elbow on the pad (that’s how you will fall back into the wrist movements instead of arm movements) & literally do the warm ups explained above & then maybe move I to gesture drawings if you like drawing people of perspective cubes & such if you like backgrounds & then into drawing drawings to get the muscle memory of using your while arm not your wrist if you still find it really hard get a cheap wrist brace so help you stop using your wrist but & I STRESS THIS if your wrist starts hurting in the brace from using it while drawing TAKE IT OFF STRETCH YOUR WRIST & TALE A BREAK again I have RSI issues & I have to use a brace for wrist pain but sometimes it starts to cause me pain & I have to take a break from the brace being immobile or trying to move when/where it can’t also can make it hurt also keep it loose cause you don’t need it for support but jut to stop you from drawing with your wrist! I accidentally trained myself to draw more with my arm because in college I had to use my brace a lot & had to learn to draw with my whole arm (or from the shoulder as others say) which is why I say f you are truly struggling give it a shot cause if you keep drawing with your wrist & don’t do the stretches you’ll need the brace eventually anyways but for support😬
Also trust me the warm-ups are not a waste of time & don’t have to be a waste of material either it doesn’t have to be the exact same material you are going to use like if I’m using watercolor I can do warm ups in my sketch book or on news print & with a cheaper pencil or cheap paints, once it’s dried you can even use the warm up sheets often if you aren’t found the more precise ones like the dot connecting & such but when your done with them you can also turn them into something I mean look at the people who take kids scribbles and do outlines with them & stuff, or if you’re doing watercolor like I said you can shred it or cut it up & wow you got colorful confetti right? Obviously with digital you just trash the Lauer or make new ones but I know people who are strapped for cash may not do the warm ups because materials cost money & I know I get it so much so don’t worry if you got to get sheep stuff to do the warm ups it’s just to warm up it doesn’t have to be premium stuff & really shouldn’t be anyways!
So yes warm ups, draw from shoulder/with arm not wrist, do stretches, take breaks stay healthy because oh gosh do you not want RSIs guys! Also remember before a game all sports people warm up, musicians & singers warm up so it only makes sense to be at our best we artists should warm up too!! Oh & DRINK WATER & TAKE WALKING/JUMPING BREAKS get those legs moving to avoid blood clot/nerve/tingly sleeping leg & feet issues! For those who have legs & mobility capability of their legs of course 😅
I have come back in a posting manor to share ONE THING
I recently started binge watching SVU because I’m running out of shows I haven’t seen all of guys anyways on season 10 episode 14 when the beautiful Alex Kingston appears on scree (also known as river song for peeps like me who never know actors names) and Olivia says “Miss Pond” I about choked on my food I was like “HER NAME IS WHAT??” Guys that’s not all please look at the dates she was on these shows
First appearance on doctor who 2008
First appearance on SVU 2009
Now I know I know at the time of her start on the show they may not have decided the whole melody pond route some may say but I googled it & I’ve seen articles saying yes it was planned from the start so you can’t tell me they just pulled out M POND as her svu characters name out of a hat?!?!
Also technically doctor who is in our world right & so is svu so this means river song oce in a while took on her maiden last name to go & defend people in court oh and her first episode she’s defending a young transgender girl which I fully believe river song would do she also showed up out of now where & wasn’t called pm or found by the parents she heard about the case & said “I’ll represent her” like 100% believe that this can be Canon in the Dr who universe honestly
Also SVU takes place in New York & what happened in New York? THE THING WE DINT TALK ABOUT CAUSE ITS TOO SAD & the headstone doesn’t say a date (so the Dr isn’t tempted to find them) but do we know if River Song couldn’t see them? Maybe she paraded as M Pond a lawyer in New York for a reason HMMMMM??? This part is semi far stretched but let me have this part case even if there were rules of why she couldn’t see them again we know River Song would have said screw that & found a way right it’s her parents! Anyways regardless I’m sticking to the part that River Song pops into new York now & then to be a lawyer with the last name of Pond
I feel like if any continent would be more likely to have dragons, it’d be here in Australia. Heaps of uninhabited space where they can’t be found by people who’d tattle on them. Super hot climate. Also the people here couldn’t care less about seeing one so they’d most likely just live in peace even if we did know they were here.
ALT
