Week 1 - Further study of color

I am continuing where The Natural Way to Draw left off. I am using the schedules and exercises from the book as a template, and adding my own exercises. I am trying to stay in the same vein as The Natural Way to Draw, by focusing exercises on isolating one particular skill. Also I am taking out stacks of art technique books from the Philadelphia Free Library and using these as inspiration for exercises. I will post my lesson plans, as I do them to keep track of my progress.Two Color Gesture - This is the same exercise as the 5 minute black and white gesture. Except now I use two analogous colors instead of black and white. Its good for getting used to the way colors mix in Photoshop. Its a color warm-upCartoon Gesture - These are quick copies from still-framing classic cartoons. I start by quickly drawing the basic forms, then I go back over and quickly draw the contour lines. Gesturing human figures really helped to ingrain human proportions and movement. I am hoping this does the same for cartoon characters. This week I used Looney Tunes.

Alwyn Crawshaw's Exercises - I got these from the book Alwyn Crawshaw's Oil Painting Course. These are simple exercises designed to teach mixing oil paint. I found the useful in learning to 'mix' Photoshop paint. They were also nice lessons in technique of laying down the colors.Under Painting - In this exercise, I experimented with under-painting technique and using layers in Photoshop. I did a quick rendering of the model in two colors and then used a thin layers of photoshop paint over it to change the colors.Structure Studies - This quick exercises is to break down a figure into simple shapes. First I break down the figure into basic shapes by drawing the shapes over the figure on another layer. Then I draw the shapes in my sketch book. I beleive this exercise will help me in drawing realistic figure quickly, without a model for reference.Sustained Study - Still Life - This is the same as the sustained study in The Natural Way to Draw except using a still life instead of a model. I chose this still life to gain more experience in using color.Overall I am very happy with my progress this week. I have increased my understanding and ability to paint in full color in photoshop. That was the goal of this weeks exercises, and that is what they did.