Independent Study - Spring 2014

[HMC]

I had to take beginning Painting at school for my college's BFA program because the one I took in community college didn't count or whatever, but my instructor knows that I'm above that level so he's letting me do whatever I want as long as I give him a structured outline of what I want to do, so I'm just gonna do a ton of paintings of people at my school. Before I start painting them, though, I want to amass some preliminary sketches first, to use as reference, so I've been getting some of my friends and acquaintances and just random people around campus to pose for me. I've found that I've had varying degrees of success with each model. Some were happy to hold still for the entire duration, while others were just looking down at whatever they were doing the whole time and made it difficult to keep facial features relatively proportional (also, I've found that drawing on a horizontal surface makes it really easy to distort the size of one's head due to the diminishing perspective of the drawing surface) Each drawing has taken me about 20-40 minutes. Gonna use this thread to document some of my progress so far.

Note: I've taken photos of everyone who's participated, but keep in mind that is only for posterity. Everyone here was drawn from life and photographed after the fact.

[OmniromX]

Great drawings of uglugs.

[Pizza The Hut]

amazing

[Liam Brocklehurst]

Originally Posted by HMC

Loving this one - these are impressive! I can see some skewed features in places, but you pretty much explained that

[Bown]

I think perhaps there's a little too much shading on the faces in some cases, which can serve to make them look unflattering, but mostly these are great.

[OmniromX]

Actually these drawings are horrible. They all fail miserably. You failed to capture their expressions.

The one guy who is making a very interesting expression, the last dude, you failed to capture it. Do you feel the same looking into his eyes as when you do the drawing? You didn't draw their beauty, you made them look like ugly monsters. They look like their from a different planet.

I think you should pick one photo and really really focus on making the drawing evoke the same feelings as the photo.

You should draw crazy hobos. Or just a crazy stripper whore. That'd be real interesting.

[Qaz]

Good drawings overall but I'm with Bown, the shading is just...bad. It's a some bad scribbling lines over the faces making the drawings look very rough. I mean the guys with beards don't know where they end and shading begins. Now all I see is everyone with beard faces. Acceptable for quick drawings, but something to work on I guess.

The first two with glasses though are amazingly drawn glasses.

[HMC]

Yeah, there's something to be said about the level of detail on people's faces. I did this one of my friend Shannon the other day, and while I think it looks ok on its own, when it's hung up next to the others she looks ninety years old.







Aaaaand here's the first actual painting I've done. Took me probably about 4 hours give or take.

[Gorosaurus]

You are clearly quite talented

If you find that some of your figures are looking too old, it's probably because you are trying too hard to capture their likeness. It's not the goal of the exercise you're doing, but simplify them if you want to add youth. An unbroken jaw line (a wide U) hints at a more circular, youthful face. The same can be said for all the lines- from nose to eyes.

One more thing I feel I can add- be very focused on the size and location of the cornea, as that is different on every human being. More to the point- it's the white of the eyes to watch for. Yes, the location clearly changes depending on what they are looking at, but everyone has their 'usual' spots they rest their eyes at.



I noticed that in this, and several other examples, you drew the eyes like you would any other eyes. See the white space beneath her eye in the picture? That's very important for likeness as its more of a mannerism than a physical quality. Your most successful pieces in this series are the ones where the eyelids are closed, and I think this is a big reason why.


Also, don't listen to people about the facial hair blending with the shading. Keep doing what you're doing. Exact crosshatching is not the goal of these exercises- speed and likeness are (I assume..!).


And you have proven once more with your latest picture that color is your strongest point. You have a very gifted imagination and grasp of color relations.

[HMC]

So! I'm doing live paintings of all my subjects now. It works so much better. These aren't the greatest photos (in terms of focus and color accuracy), but here's what I've done just this past week! All of them took ~45 minutes on average

[Gorosaurus]

1, 3, 6, and 7 are really really good!!

[Izak MD]

your painting technique is really solid, and i would often wish i could do what you do with paint back when i was more involved in art. you have a natural understanding of color and when/where to lay in the solid slabs of paint rather than doing fine, finicky, unconfident lines and shades.

the actual drawings are basically good but kind of funky in some ways -- the first girl is a bit pinheaded, but i suppose your point about drawing on horizontal paper is the reason for that. i think your issue is that you're having difficulty with subtle poses. the girl with glasses looking down and the last dude with the goatee both have odd eyelines - it's like you were having trouble compromising what you know about how human eyes work with the subtle angle of their positioning, because the heads were both only slightly cocked to the left, which is harder than having a head fully looking left. your drawing of the black dude looking down is good because he's fully looking down, but i wonder: if his head were only slightly cocked downward, would the drawing be as good? a subtle angle is usually harder to draw than a more bold one.

but anyhow good job. keep going.

[Yamles]

Your painting is so damn strong. I like your paintings so much more than your drawings. Umf that use of colour you son of a bitch. You nail a sense of three-dimensions far better with paint, that second to last one with the glasses is a good example.

[HMC]

More portraits of classmates






My girlfriend broke up with me on Tuesday, so yesterday I listened to every Antlers album in sequence and painted this self-portrait as my final painting for the semester.

[OmniromX]

Hey good stuff. All those ppl look kinda unhappy. You should make a bunch of sad art like Trent Reznor now.

[Eukos]

They are amazing!

[BjergClimber]

Originally Posted by OmniromX

You should make a bunch of sad art like Trent Reznor now.

ahahah