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Hi there, hope everybody is fine
French living in Madrid, Spain for 30 years. As a street photographer confined for now two months, I decided to reconnect with my very old drawing passion (when I was a teenager – many, many years ago).
Amateur of medium and large format analog photography, and mainly of street and travel portraits, I aspire to transform my skills as a slow photographer into those of a fast drawer… With no other goal than that of making better drawings on my sketchbooks.
With the help of this challenge, hope I’ll have the time, patience and consistency to do at least one (quick) portrait a day, trying to improve my appreciation of the proportions and characteristics of the people I draw.
Here is the first (tiny) drawing. Made directly with fountain pen as I generally did so far. This will serve as a starting point to see the progress. If any…
Same character, this time with pencil.
I have tried to apply all the stuff I saw these days in the videos about forms and proportions, gesture, light …
I am desperately aware of all my limitations and the many imperfections of this drawing, but I am quite happy with the result.
Motivated by the videos I see and stimulated by the superb drawings published here, it is indeed the first time in my life that I take the time to try to do things right. So this is for me a double record: the size of the drawing, much larger than I use to do it, and the time spent on it … I hope to have the patience to continue.
Hi Philippe. Its a cool portrait! I like some of the plane changes in there. As a suggestion, perhaps I would like to see more form in the nose, the wing of the nose and plane changes.
Nice also to hear from a fellow photographer getting into drawing. I also did analogue street photography for a while.
Now I tend to shoot more 16mm moving film.
I also got into drawing a little while before the crisis started and the quarantine got me doing it all day long. Loooking forward to see your progress.
I agree with Shazad. I would like to see more structure in the bridge of the nose and cheek bones.
Well done!
Many thanks to both of you for taking the time to give me your feedback, really appreciate.
I take note for the improvements to be made, especially on the nose and the cheekbones. On the next version, I will work on these aspects!! Thanks again.
A friendly greeting to you Shazad, happy to learn that we are at least two analogue photographers still alive. Even after two months of quarantine.
I too have a 16 mm Paillard-Bolex camera at home. I had never used it, but recently my son, who is a camera operator, used it to shoot a video clip, and I love the result.
Hi there. Doing a (quick) portrait a day like I thought at the start will not give me much. The courses I started on NMA have open my eyes. I will definitively change my 100 day challenge, which will simply be to dedicate at least 1 hour a day to drawing theory and practice. Not only focused on portrait, also sketching the human figure, trying to capture gesture… I am sure I can do it effortlessly, and I’m more and more motivated, because I see that I am learning and progressing. Here are some of the drawings made these days.
Doing a (quick) portrait a day like I thought at the start will not give me much. The courses I started on NMA have open my eyes. I will definitively change my 100 day challenge, which will simply be to dedicate at least 1 hour a day to drawing and/or lessons, all about head and figure drawing, focused on gesture. And trying to do as seriously as possible 🙂
Here are some of the drawings made these last days.
Hi there. Here are some of the drawings made these days. Not only focused on portrait, also human figure, trying to capture gesture.
Sorry for these multiple posts, I thought it did not work and I tried several times…
New portrait yesterday, I am trying to improve the volumes, but not very convinced by the result.
Great progress here. It looks like you have a heavy hand. Try starting your drawing lighter and slowing work in your darks for more control.
Many thanks for your comment Joshua !
I work a lot of things at the same time, but I admit that rendering is one of the multiple things I have absolutely no control over yet.
The more I draw, the more I understand things, and I am starting now to focus on details that I didn’t even pay attention to before.
Even though I haven’t posted anything these days, I draw every day, and watch fantastic videos (some of them many times).
I have done a lot of head layouts, and I am starting to work on the facial features (for now, eyes, nose).
Here are some of the last pages of my sketchbooks.
I try to assimilate the courses I followed by drawing every day. Progress is not linear, some days are awfull, others better. But when I manage to exercise discipline, I am quite satisfied with the general tend.
An attempted portrait from a photo taken on the Internet of French actor Jean Gabin.
I mainly try to work on rendering, controlling volumes and values.
I think it’s better, but there is still a long way to go!
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