Something was said in watercolor class yesterday that made me think about what made me want to paint in the first place: portraits. Painting people's faces and bodies. And I haven't done that much, except for the 5 geisha I did. Time to get back to basics and return to studying portrait drawing and painting until I can feel comfortable with getting a good likeness.
So I printed out my Drawing Newsletter from January 2006. I saved every one last year but am a year late in getting around to doing the drawing. Better late than never, I think :)
If you're interested, you can sign up for this free newsletter by Michael R. Britton at http://www.artacademy.com I may get his drawing dvds this year, too.
Lin #1 - January 22, 2007 Lin #2 - January 23, 2007
The picture of Lin came from the January 2006 newsletter. My plan is to do one each day but each model twice. So yesterday and today, I did Lin. Did I get any better the second day? Did I get worse? Did I see things better the second time around or the first? I think this will be a real learning experience.
And here is Michael's portrait of Lin which was featured in the newsletter done in graphite and conte crayon.
2 comments:
Rhonda,
I applaud your back to basics approach in practicing the drawing, we all should do that occasionaly.
I think you did a better likeness on the second attempt, the eyes are more like the original sketch. Did you notice that you made the head larger in proportion to the body? What I most miss with drawing is the negative shading to create the objects (eyes, nose, etc.) that I do with a brush. This seems much easier to accomplish with a brush than a pencil.
Good job....Susan
Thanks, Susan, for your comment. Yes, working in a sketch book you have to adjust and I did the head first and then tried to fit the shoulders in - not a good way to get the fit but I'm more interested in the faces right now so the body parts were just afterthoughts. I love this sketchbook because it has a rough texture that works with drawing very well.
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