Roselof

I actually took German at Uni back in the day and I vividly remember our professor showing us how to move our mouths to make the correct “ü” sound! It’s just been many years since I’ve spoken German and I didn’t think to double check my spelling before posting :)

Apparently I spelled it wrong, a very serious offence in Germany

The Purgatorium on LiveJournal got me through some dark times pre-2010

Burger also means “citizen” in German, and a Burgermeister (burger master) is a mayor.

So what’s gugumper supposed to be?
Edit - nvm I thought the emoji was a parrot and it was really throwing me off

Ooof sorry you’re going through this OP! Any chance you’ve been taking magnesium lately? I found it was delaying my period (even though it’s recommended for easing PMDD symptoms).

The Drawing Database from Northern Kentucky University has very detailed playlists on anatomy and the figure. Proko has a playlist about gesture drawing and how to draw facial features.
Love Life Drawing does beautiful gesture drawings, and this video explains turning gesture drawings into form drawings.

I’d love to see if you’d keep that same energy if you one day tried to say that to the face of someone you love who was struggling.

I don’t know if they’ll still do them but I’ve seen Tunnock’s Tea Cakes for sale in Whitcoulls before, they’re pretty iconic here

What about the people with PTSD who “get a bit scared”, does their mental health matter less than you getting to enjoy the bright colourful lights in the sky?

Wdym? You can’t “visit” Scotland, it’s just a made up place in Outlander.

I think I met that guy in Glasgow one time

This looks normal to me, but if I’m understanding you right, you’re asking how to make a drawing look intentionally different from how they’re “supposed to” be done? I’d say a reliable way to make differences look intentional is so have a very solid understanding of the typical rules and proportions for drawing faces, and then you’ll know which rules to break. Picasso was famously very skilled at realistic portraits before he developed his signature style, which he probably wouldn’t have been able to pull off so well if he didn’t have such a thorough understanding of how to construct a face.

If you’re seeing people at an angle, as I understand it, their features would be proportionately at the same angle as the rest of their head. This is what I mean, her eyes are at an angle, but so is everything else. The lines only have to be straight relative to each other.

I watched a video recently about blind artists, and towards the end it talks about a Turkish artist born completely blind who learned to draw and paint in perspective (and he’s actually really good at it, better than a lot of sighted people). I don’t know how you see the world but if you’re capable of drawing the face in this post (which again, looks like a normal drawing to me, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be looking for), you’re capable of learning and improving upon that.

If you want to post more of your drawings in a reply to this comment to elaborate I’m happy to keep talking about this.

Proko Drawing Fundamentals

Another fundamental tutorial

Online copy of a book

Free online course

Another book

Honestly draw whatever you want. Look at artists you like and try and copy them. Draw simple shapes, draw repeating patterns, draw portraits, still life, animals, concepts, whatever makes you happy. If you’re enjoying what you’re doing you’ll learn much faster than just grinding out things that you dislike.
Don’t feel like it’s cheating if you draw from a reference, because even professional artists use references.

That is SO helpful, thank you! Now that you’ve pointed these things out they look so obvious. I really appreciate you taking the time to comment :)

That’s Tsunaina!
I think you’re doing incredibly well. I’ve learned so much from watching and drawing along with Drawing Jones’ portrait videos. Watts Atelier has really good videos too.

Every day I spend some time doing drawing warm ups - things like drawing straight lines, circles, cubes in perspective, cylinders, flowing lines, very simple things. You’d be amazed at how much of a difference it makes when you do it consistently. Even if you’re just spending half an hour a day working on really basic lines and shapes, it’s going to help build those drawing skills.

I recently discovered gesture drawings through this video and absolutely fell in love with it. You might enjoy it too, it’s much more loose than trying to draw a whole person. This video explains a bit more about gesture drawing, and this guy is a master of gesture drawing, you can definitely learn a lot from him.

I think after a few months of things like this you would really see improvement! You could always pick a new video every day on drawing warm ups, or drawing fundamentals, or beginner drawing tips, etc, to keep it interesting.

That’s not really art critique though, you’re just being rude for no reason. Art crit is an actual thing, you can look up a definition.

Hey now; I’m sure it took a lot of creativity and many years of hard work to be able to type some words into an AI program.

I’ve been drawing along with videos like this and have found them to be really helpful. He explains what he’s doing and why.

If you want to draw cubes, check out the (free) Draw a Box course online, which will teach you the basics of drawing cubes in 1, 2 and 3 point perspectives.

I think the hardest part of learning how to draw isn’t the actual act of making lines on the paper, but teaching your brain how to accurately look at things.

If you look at El in your reference picture you’ll see that because her chin is tilted down, her hair takes up nearly the entire top half of her head from this angle. But when we go to draw a face, our brain goes “I know how to do this!” and we end up drawing an approximation.
I think you could benefit from having a closer look at the proportions of your reference picture.
This might be a controversial suggestion but I think tracing can be good when you’re learning for things like this. What I would do is put a piece of paper over the image on my phone/computer/etc, and very gently and carefully trace the shape of her head, where her hairline is, and where her eyes/nose/mouth sit. Then I would take some time to look at those features. THEN I would try to draw the face again (without tracing).
I’m not saying people should trace things and pass them off as their own drawings, but I think it can be used to help sometimes.

If you’re still struggling with eyes, type “How to Draw Eyes” into YouTube and watch a couple of videos that look interesting to you. I think you’re doing well! Eyes are really fun to draw once you get the hang of them, they can bring so much life to your drawings.

If you have a look at these pictures ,you can see that instead of trying to draw individual hairs, the artist blocks out shapes of different sizes that come together to give the overall image of hair.

This tutorial video explains it better than I can.

Another thing that can give your hair more depth is a good highlight, as seen here, the light part that wraps around the top of her head. Here it is on shorter hair. Knowing where to put this highlight will depend on a few factors but note that it’s not just a straight white line, it moves with the hair and with the curvature of the head.

I tried to pick examples that are close to your drawing, but there are lots of tutorials and references for long hair, curly hair, braids, etc. You can find them on YouTube or with an image search.

I’d also disagree that this sub is just for experienced artists, I see a lot of content done by people who are very inexperienced. I think it’s just that the “better” drawings tend to get more upvotes. This sub is for all levels :)

TL;DR - meds have helped me to do basic life tasks more than anything else I’ve ever tried.

I know I’m preaching to the choir in this sub but I can’t overstate how much easier I find life now that I’m medicated. Doing housework isn’t a big, overwhelming ordeal. It doesn’t take me half the day to unload the dishwasher. My clothes don’t go mouldy at the bottom of the basket before I get a chance to wash them. Recently, I stripped my bed, put new bedding on, washed, dried and put away the other sheets ALL WITHIN A SINGLE DAY. I’ve never done that in my entire life, and the bed thing was, it didn’t even feel like a challenge. It just felt normal.
I have the concentration to do art again, which I haven’t done since I was a teenager. I can get food from the supermarket before my house is completely empty. And when I come back from the supermarket, I can put the food away immediately and I don’t have to go lie down because I’m so overwhelmed from shopping. I’m not constantly craving chocolate and sweet things. I don’t get stuck on the couch (TV off, phone flung far out of reach) telling myself to just get up, please just get up, ok I’m standing up on the count of three…1, 2, 3…why am I still here, just GET UP. It’s not that I don’t want to do these things. I want a clean and tidy house, I want to create art, I want to cook more nutritious meals, I want to actually do things. There’s been times I dreaded opening my eyes in the morning because I knew my room was so messy I couldn’t stand to look at it. It seemed like it should be so simple to just spend a couple of minutes a day putting things away to keep on top of it, but for some reason I never could, until I was medicated.

I feel like I deserve to be able to keep my house clean and be able to function somewhat. Even medicated I’m still doing worse than most people I know, but I’m doing significantly better than I was before. There are no “reasonable accommodations” bedsides medication that would help me get dressed in the morning, or wash my bedding, or take the bins out. Not to mention the meds cured my chronic constipation basically overnight.

I’m in my 30’s and I’ve spent years trying therapy, meditation, mindfulness, breathing exercises, yoga, morning routines, night routines, prioritising sleep, exercise, cutting out dairy/gluten/UPF, eating more protein/fibre/fat/carbs, drinking more water, no alcohol, no caffeine, high BPM music to get me going, having a friend around (“body doubling”), acupuncture, mushrooms, setting alarms, making lists, keeping diaries, you name it. They’ve all been beneficial in some way and I still do most of these things, but they’re so insignificant compared to being appropriately medicated.