Portrait drawing - looking for critique
9mo
@petewisdom
Hello everyone. This is my first time posting here. For the new year I decided to start studying realistic portrait drawing. I signed up for Stephen’s Bauman’s block in course and been working steadily at simple portraits. Proko’s Twitter account suggested I post some here to get some good critiques.
This is my latest attempt. I’d welcome any feedback people are willing to give.
many thanks in advance.
Pete
Hey Pete! What a nice piece you've created – there's so much to admire! The rendering is spot-on, the likeness is unmistakable, and the hair flows beautifully!
After taking it all in, the first thing that caught my eye was the alignment of the facial features. It seemed a bit off in terms of placement and angles. Typically, the main features align along parallel lines, right? (Unless, of course, you're playing with perspective intentionally). I've found that drawing lines over the features helps clarify their alignment.
Just sharing my thoughts. All the best!
Thanks for the kind words Jean. I knew there was something that bothered me about the eye placement, and I think that may well be it. Thanks very much for the advice.
Hey @petewisdom,
Nice job on this drawing. You captured the likeness pretty well, but because your photo of he drawing is at an angle, the drawing is a little distorted.
As far as the rendering goes, you did what a lot of people who are just starting out do- you made the reflective light too light. One of the things we have to do as we render is always be comparing the values to other values in the reference.
For example: are the highlights in the hair the same value as the skin? nope.
are the "whites of the eyes" white? nope.
are there highlights in the hair on the shadow side of the hair? nope.
Make sure you are always comparing values with other values to get the correct relationships. I did a quick sketch to show you what I'm talking about, I hope it helps :)
Thanks so much for the advice. Really appreciate you taking the time to illustrate it too.
I can see what you mean and I’m going to keep that in mind from now on. In isolation the highlights in the hair are really light, but compared to the skin they’re not. I’ll have to be more mindful of the piece as a whole as I render.
thanks again Steve.
