Look forward to reading and commenting.

I have no idea how well it's going to work, but hopefully it'll work well. ^^

I hope everyone will drop by so I can give you founder/operator/member status. ^^

http://chat.deviantart.com/chat/TheCommentExchange

Switching hands forces you to focus on the movement of your hand itself. This results in you not lazily/robotically performing actions that your dominant hand has memorized. After I got good enough with my left hand, I began to draw with both at the same time. That's a lot of fun. People already view portrait artists as a talented and odd people. Imagine their faces when they realize that you're drawing with both hands at once and somehow managing to coordinate the whole mess into something that actually looks like them. Fun stuff.

This is an easy exercise, and it's a lot of fun. Just try drawing with your non-dominant hand and see what happens.

What other stuff did you learn in those classes? You you have any other tips that could help me with that kind of thing? I mean, I like to think I'm pretty good already, but there's so much I can improve on, and I love collecting little tips.

I would probably start out doing 1-2 minute sketches and slowly limit yourself more and more. The ideal is to be capable of capturing the essence of a man falling from a building before he hits the ground. Or at least that was how our instructor told us.

Don't worry about messing it up. Going slow isn't much help to you. If you sketch hard and fast all the time, you'll go through a lot of paper, but you skill will explode exponentially. When I was taking figure drawing classes they often had us trying to sketch a person in 30 seconds or less. When that's all the time you have, you learn that it doesn't have to be perfect. It makes the drawings you spend several minuets on a LOT better.

I do sometimes doodle in pen. Whenever I draw in pencil on my sketchpad, I don't want to waste the paper so I try to get the drawing right the first time. It slows down production. Doodling on napkins or scratch paper is fun because it's casual and fast, and it still comes out really good!
Funny how that works.

Welcome to the CE team. I know you'll fit right in. A great many of our members are just like you. They have followed the spirit of the comment exchange even without the website and the artistic community movement behind it. This is just a place where people can come, and find those who are of this giving mindset.

I love graphite. You just can't beat the versatility. And the stuff is everywhere. Pencils are so easy to come by. The majority of my work tends to be in graphite as well. You learn a ton more from a medium if you can't erase though. Try experimenting with things like charcoal or conte crayon (they're so much fun).

Once again, welcome, and have fun. ^_^

Welcome to the team. I'm sure we'll have lots of fun. And thanks for the praise. I'm just glad I can help out my fellow artists.

Then, just today, I found this place through the Elfwood Profile of Saskia H. Suurling. I don’t know who that is here, but she had a link to this place, which I followed and instantly found myself at home! ^_^

Well, I’ve just finished meeting everyone who introduced themselves here, and finally I can make my own.

My name is Michael, and I have an Elfwood account that has been active for about a year now.
I usually do stuff in graphite pencil, a mechanical one with 0.7mm lead (though I like 0.5mm too–I just don’t have any at the moment). When I color things, it’s usually with colored pencils. However, I hope to color stuff digitally in the future. If I continue colored pencils, I’ll probably have to print out pictures cleaned up digitally so I don’t smear the graphite. xD

Well, everyone ask me anything you like and I’ll be all too happy to start a conversation in answer. ^_^

Looks like you're a fellow critic! ^_^ Can't wait to trade comments.

Good luck with that tablet! Wish I had one of those...

Year of the Dragon, baby! That's me! And I'm kind-of upset that Hatori was a sea-horse. Totally unfair if you ask me.

As long as we're talking horoscopes, I'm also a Scorpio. I like to think crossing my western Scorpio with my Chinese Dragon makes me a Wyvern! ^_^

Can't wait to start browsing everyone's galleries!

Well, I'm off to go read the next introduction. ^_^