Doh!

Well I said I would post both the good and the bad attempts at sketching that I'm trying to produce on a daily basis. So today's efforts fall into the 'bad' category. And it was going so well!

 

So I picked back up on yesterday's sketch of the 'Skeleton Heads' with the intention of creating more solid forms using shading techniques. Things started off okay, although I'm not sure the reflections on the glasses are right.

Using a black Biro pen and putting down light, cross-hatching lines to build up a smooth, blended surface I went about trying to give the sketch 3D form so that the skull looks solid. Not as brilliant as I would like but not going too badly at this point.

So this is where things start to go wrong. Now I have to admit I was partly focused on the drawing and partly focused on researching something on the laptop whilst I was drawing, and I could make the excuse that that would account for my poor effort. But even though I'm obviously not great at combining two different tasks at once, the mistake in the drawing is really just down to my own stupidity; I should've known better given that I've studied this a million times before! Can you spot the mistake yet?

 

Yup, I've gone and drawn two different light sources in one sketch. Doh!

It took me a while to realise, the light is definitely ambiguous but when you look at the hands the light falling on them just doesn't make sense. And the side of the upper head would be light, not dark. Unless there's a light floating around between the two heads! So because I wasn't concentrating I dropped the ball. As I said before, Doh!