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How to Set Up a Portrait Composition in Corel Draw - Tutorial

Dec 30, 2009 Art General, Tutorials

It’s always important to determine your composition before starting a drawing, and sometimes it can be useful to do this with the computer. Using photo editing software allows you to combine various images, see what the finished product will look like, and best of all, to make changes easily. I use Corel Draw to create all of my compositions. It’s a very intuitive, easy to use program, but it’s also quite powerful.

Creating compositions this way can provide you with a reference to draw from, and it can also be something that you send to a client before starting a commission. I’ve used Corel Draw to bring figures closer together than they were in the original photograph, to combine the body from one photo with the head from another, and to find the best way to arrange multiple subjects.

This tutorial is meant to teach you how to use Corel Draw to manipulate your photos and create a composition. I’m using a single subject, but you can do this with as many figures as you need to.

 Bring your photo reference into Corel Draw. You can do this by clicking file-open, file-import, or you can just click and drag your photo into the program.

 Click on the shapes tool, circled in red. This tool allows you to crop your image by changing the outline. After clicking on the shapes tool, click on your photo. You will see the black boxes in each corner change to smaller white boxes outlined in black. 

With the mouse, hover over one of these “nodes.” You’ll notice that it gets a little bit bigger. Click and hold as you draw in towards the photo. Here I’ve cropped the upper right corner. We can get an even closer crop by adding nodes. To do this, simply double click anywhere on the outer edge of your photo. A node will appear and you can drag it inwards.

You can get really fussy with this if you want, adding nodes to get a smooth outline, but there’s no real need. Just get the basic outline of your figure.

Now we want to create our frame. Click anywhere on the background or white space and you will see this menu appear. It allows you to change the units of measurement. Depending on what size you want your finished drawing, choose the appropriate units. I like to work in inches.

Notice the rules along the top and left edges of your workspace. Put your mouse on top of one of these rulers, click and drag into your document. You have just created a guide. These guides can be moved and deleted just like any other element of your page, but when you line them up with the ruler, they are great for measuring. Here I’ve used guides to create a 5″ x 7″ frame, the size that I want my drawing to be.

Now you can scale up your image to fill the frame. Click and draw one of the corner boxes to make your image bigger or smaller. This is where you can play around to find the best composition or arrangement. The great thing about this is that you can actually see what your finished drawing will look like.

If part of your image happens to go outside of your guides, just use the shapes tool again to crop off that part.

Now that you have your basic composition, you may want to consider a background. Use the rectangle tool to draw a rectangle the dimensions of your frame. Then, on your keyboard, hit ctrl-page down. This layers the rectangle underneath your image.

On the right hand side, click the object properties tab. Here is where you can change the properties of your rectangle. Use the gradient fill to simulate shading and play around to see what looks best.

Once you’ve picked a background, it’s time to save your picture. It’s a good idea to save a Corel file in case you need to make change, but you will also want to export a jpg. To do this, simply click file-export, choose jpeg as your file format and click “export.” At this point, you could also add grid lines if you chose.

Here is the final image. I’ve taken it into a simple photo editing program and decreased the saturation to make it grayscale. This can now be used as your reference, or sent to a client to approve the composition!

Tags: composition, portraits, Tutorials

Know When to Take a Break

Dec 27, 2009 Art General

As a perfectionist, I learned at a very young age the importance of knowing when to walk away from a project. I was in Girl Guides for a long time when I was a kid and a significant part of the program involved making crafts. While I love making and creating, and while I consider myself to be artistic, I am not a crafty person. In fact, I hate making crafts.

I love the crafts themselves and admire people who can do it well. My mom is a crafter; the things she makes are amazing! But there’s something about the finicky nature of crafts that frustrates the heck out of me!

I remember being in Brownies and getting all worked up because my project didn’t look just right. I can still remember my mom saying, “just take a break, Miranda, just take a break.”

I was reminded of this lesson, which I have applied to my entire life, during my recent portrait marathon. No matter how tight the deadline, no matter how much  work you need to do, never under-estimate the power of a short break.

Even a ten minute break helps to clear your mind and give you a fresh start. When you start feeling frustrated or overwhelmed (like you’ll never get it done), go for a quick walk, grab a snack, read a book or watch some TV. Afterwards, you will feel ready to tackle your task again.

It might sound counterproductive: take a break when you’re worried about getting something done. The thing is, when you’ve been working too long, you get to the point when you stop being productive even if you’re still working. Taking that ten minutes break will make the rest of your time more effective.

I call it having a “fresh brain.”

Whatever it is that you’re trying to do, take this lesson with you into the New Year and fit some breaks into your schedule!

Tags: art tips, time management

Merry Christmas!

Dec 25, 2009 On my Easel, Special Bulletins

To my readers, friends and family:

Thank you for all your support and feedback as I got this site up and running earlier this year!

Merry Christmas to everyone and a Happy New Year!

Tags: messages

My Latest, Greatest Portrait Commission

Dec 23, 2009 On my Easel

After being holed up in my house for the past four days, I have finally finished my last Christmas commission of the year!

I was contacted about two weeks ago by Alan, who wanted to know if it was too late for a portrait. I told him of course it wasn’t; then he told me he wanted a drawing of his entire family of twelve people and their dog! I have to admit, I hummed and hawed a bit. I knew I could do it, I just wasn’t sure if I could fit it into my schedule along with my own Christmas stuff.

In the end, I had to say yes. It was a special circumstance and I very much wanted to help Alan make this work!

It was a couple days before we were able to meet, choose photographs and hammer out a composition. Alan wanted a large portrait of his wife, surrounded by smaller pictures of his family. Basically, the drawing was to be all about his wife, with everyone else supporting her.

In the end, it took about thirty-five hours of drawing, countless revisions, and at least fifteen different photos to complete this! I used one photo for each of the small figures (some I used a second photo to reference certain facial features). Alan’s wife was made up of a combination of three pictures: one for the face, one for the body, and a third for the mouth.

Long story short, I have been working on this drawing to the exclusion of almost everything else! I haven’t seen Twitter in days, haven’t updated my Facebook page, and haven’t been able to check out my favorite blogs. My house is a shambles, there’s no food in the fridge and I have about six hours of laundry to do. Today, I left my house for the first time in three days!

As much as I’m glad to be done, it has been a pleasure working with Alan on this project. I think it turned out amazingly well and I hope his wife absolutely loves it!

Tags: art, portraits

Tips for Drawing Eyebrows

Dec 19, 2009 Drawing

Mashi recently asked a question on my eye tutorial about how to draw eyebrows. Eyebrows are made up of hundreds of individual hairs, so we should draw them the same way we draw any other kind of hair. That being said, there are a few strategies to use when drawing realistic eyebrows.

First of all, it depends on the size of your portrait. If the face you’re drawing is quite small, you simply won’t have the room for detail. For small drawings, delicate shading is all you need. Look closely at your reference for the shape and size of the brows. Sometimes, if a person has very light or very thin brows, you won’t actually see the entire arch. This is especially true for kids.

A few things to remember:

• brows are generally widest near the nose and taper towards the outside of the face.
• women’s brows are thinner, more arched, more tapered, and slightly higher on the forehead.
• men’s brows sit lower, are wider and straighter.
• eyebrows are thicker along the top edge, and more sparse at the bottom edge.
• the hairs are curved, and change direction.

Once you’ve drawn the contours of the brow, you can use a very sharp pencil to start layering in the hairs. Start at the base of the hair, and flick your wrist to create a tapered line. Towards the nose, the hairs tend to grow straight up. They begin to angle as you move away from the face. Don’t draw all of your lines parallel, make sure some of them cross.

 The edges of your brows shouldn’t be too even or too regular; add some stray hairs along the bottom edge to make it more realistic. You can also use a kneaded eraser to highlight a few of the hairs.

Sometimes, a slight suggestion of hairs is all you need, especially on very light brows. Build up layers slowly until you achieve just the right effect!

Tags: better drawings, draw eyes, drawing tips