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!
Experimenting with Deconstruction and Another Portrait
Dec 11, 2009 On my Easel
As usual, I’m working on a couple of projects. A major theme lately has been portraits. I’ve been super busy because of Christmas. I thought I was working on my last commission of the year when I was approached about one more.
It’s a last minute request, and a big one. I am doing a large portrait of an entire family, twelve people in total. I’m still not sure how big the drawing will be, it all depends on the size of the faces. I meet with the client tomorrow to discuss details. It’s kind of a special request that I might not have taken otherwise. Assuming I can get started tomorrow, I’m going to have to draw at least one face a day to finish it before Christmas. Not impossible, but it means I’m going to have to manage my time very well!
In the meantime, this is the drawing that I need to finish before I start my big project. This drawing is for my boss, Dana. She previously commissioned a portrait of her partner running a marathon. These are her kids and this will be a Christmas gift for her mother!
I’ve had a little bit of time to work on some abstract pieces lately too. One idea I’m really excited about is the idea of deconstructing wooden furniture and turning it into an art object. What interests me about this is the idea that the arrangement of pieces is what makes an object what it is. By taking it apart and rearranging it, it stops being an object, even though all the pieces are still present.
My other venture has been the deconstruction of my paintings on canvas (as in the first picture). These works had kind of stalled and had started feeling un-interesting to me. The act and process of painting them was a very valuable experience for me, but as art the paintings weren’t doing much. I started by cutting a canvas into twenty-five squares and re-arranging them. The act of gluing down and ripping up stretched the canvas, creating an interesting texture. I’m still not sure where I’m going with this, but it’s always liberating to destroy your own work!
All About Drawing Realistic Portraits in Pencil
Nov 8, 2009 Drawing
I recently finished my series of pencil portrait lessons and thought I’d put them all in one easy-to-access place for you! Here are 17 helpful articles that cover everything from drawing the individual facial features to shading your drawings. Everything you need to learn how to draw realistic portraits is here!
The lessons take two different forms: a how to lesson that features drawing hints and strategies, and a tutorial that takes you through each process step-by-step.
How Tos
Tutorials
Other Useful Articles
If you have any questions relating to portrait drawing, or other tutorials that you’d like to see, send me an email and let me know!
Tags: better drawings, portraits, Tutorials
How to Draw a Portrait – Tutorial Part 2
Nov 1, 2009 Drawing, Tutorials
Part two of my portrait tutorial will focus on the hair and body. To see how I drew the face, check out part one of how to draw a portrait. The important thing to remember when drawing either the hair or the body is that you approach it exactly the same way you would anything else. Look for the shapes of light and dark, and create gradual shading between the two.
First of all, here is our reference, which comes from Jocelyn.
Begin blocking in the values in the hair with a 2H pencil. Build up your shadows with layers, not by pressing harder, to get a sense of the volume. Blend it out.
Next, using a B pencil, go back in and shade the shadows and midtones, creating more depth. Blend.
Now take your 2B and shade in only the very darkest areas. These include the top of the head and the areas around the face. Blend.
Now that we have shaded in the base of the hair, it’s time to add the texture. It’s important to create a sense of depth and volume in the hair as a whole before concentrating on drawing individual hairs. To draw the hairs, use a very sharp pencil and a wrist-flicking motion. Use a B pencil for the highlight areas and your 2B for the shadows. Be sure to adda few fly-away hairs.
I’ve kind of breezed through drawing the hair here, but if you want a more detailed lesson check out my tutorial on how to draw hair.
Now we can start working on the rest of the body. It’s important that you treat it the same as the face so that it looks like the same person. You don’t want either to be significantly darker, lighter or more contrasting than the other. Start with your 2H, shade in the values and blend.
Using a B pencil, shade in the darker values and blend it into the lighter. Try to achieve a smooth gradation by building up layers slowly rather than pressing harder with the pencil. Blend.
Now you can darken up the shadows with a 2B. Here I’ve darkened the shadows around the neck and shoulders as well as the straps. Blend.
At this point you’re almost done! All that you need to do now is go back in with your kneaded eraser and pull out some of those highlights. Check with your reference throughout this step and try to refine the shapes of your shadows in case they’ve shifted during blending. Don’t forget your signature!
Don’t be intimidated by drawing portraits. At the end of the day, it’s no different from drawing anything else! All you have to do is pay close attention to your reference and take your time. I also find it helps to start with the most challenging part: the face. Once you have a likeness, the rest will come together!
If you’re having trouble with a particularly tricky portrait, send me a message; I’d be happy to help!
How to Draw a Portrait – Tutorial Part 1
Oct 25, 2009 Drawing, Tutorials
As a follow-up on my post about tips for drawing realistic portraits, here is a tutorial that will take you through all the steps. Portrait drawing can be very overwhelming at first: figuring out where to start, what to do next, and how to integrate all the little details… You will need to develop a process that you’re comfortable with, one that works for you. This is an example of how I approach portrait drawing, meant to help you find your own way. I find it’s best to start with the most challenging part, the face, and then work on the other details. This tutorial will give you strategies for learning how to draw realistically.
My reference today comes from my good friend Jocelyn. Aside from being gorgeous herself, she also takes some gorgeous photos. Check out her Flickr if you have a chance.
Start with your grid. You’ll notice that I’ve done a finer grid just for the face. This is to give myself a few more points of reference when drawing the facial features. Every millimeter counts when you’re drawing the eyes, nose and mouth, and the finer the grid the easier it will be to get the right placement.
When you do your line drawing, remember to outline everything you can see: the facial features, the contours of the head and body, the highlights, the shadows and any other subtle variation in tone you can see. Having these lines to guide your shading will be a huge help! Use a hard pencil, like a 2H pencil, for this part and press very lightly; you don’t want these lines to show through your drawing! When you’re done, erase the gridlines. As you can see, I don’t worry too much about erasing every little bit. As long as the lines are light, they will be obscured by your shading.
Now we start shading! At this point, I usually focus on the face and ignore everything else. Resist the urge to start with the eyes. Your shading can sometimes point out problems with the placement of the eyes, so first work on shading the rest of the face. Use a 2H again to shade the base skin tone. Shade everything but the brightest highlights. Don’t press any harder for the shadows, just spend more time going over that area to build up more layers of graphite.
Use your blending stick to smooth out your pencil strokes. If this is looking too dark to you, remember that the only areas we want to be as white as the paper are the highlights, which in this image are small areas on the cheeks, chin, nose and forehead. You can also see that I’ve blended some graphite into the area under the bangs. When I do the hair, we will be able to see skin showing through, not white paper.
Using your B now, go in and add another layer of darker shadows. Here I have shaded around the nose, the eyes, the mouth, the left forehead and the shadows down the right side of the face. You can also block in the shapes of the eyes at this point, but lightly in case you need to make any changes. When you blend, you want a smooth transition between the shadow and the midtone, but be careful that your shadows don’t grow in the blending.
At this point, you can start adding some detail to the eyes. First, double check that they are in the right position. You can do this by comparing your drawing with your reference. You can also do this by looking at your drawing in a mirror, or scanning your drawing into the computer and overlaying it with a transparent copy of your reference. Still using your B, add more dimention to the eyes by drawing the corners, the iris and the pupil. Also draw in the fold of the eyelid. Don’t forget to include a highlight and the tear ducts! Carefully blend your marks and blend into the whites, creating a shadow under the lash line.
Next, use a 2B to define the darkest shadows. They include the ones around the nose, eyes and mouth. I’ve also added some extra shading on the right by the eye and cheekbone, as well as under the chin. Be careful blending: this pencil is quite soft and it will be easy to blend. You don’t want your shadows to expand.
For the finishing touches, use your kneaded eraser to pull out some lighter areas and clean up your highlights. You may also need to go back in with your pencil to touch up certain areas. Pay close attention to your reference at this point because it’s often these little touches that make all the difference. I’ve adjusted the highlight on the end of the nose as well as added highlights around the lips.
So we’re done the face now. In part two we will continue with the hair and the body. To get notified when the second part is ready, you can sign up for an email subscription. This lets you keep up with Learn to… Art! by receiving updates in your email inbox!
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