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Hi Isabella. Thank you – that means a lot 🙂. I’m finding these challenges are very worthwhile. You’re also doing a great job with yours!
Day 16: I decided to try out watercolour to render these heads from yesterday. I just used one colour so I could concentrate on form and technique. There’s a huge amount to learn, but I really, really loved it. The light sources for the heads are different 🙄. I did the one on the left first, then when I went to do the top right one, I realised that if I changed the lighting source to keep them all lit consistently, I’d have to light the two faces from the back of their heads. I didn’t want to do that, thus there are two light sources. Sorry! I’ll keep working on this tomorrow.
I like these. They have a nice look to them. You might want to lay some washes in for a background and play with breaking the silhouette and merging tones from the form and into the background. Vilppu’s does some of that with his watercolor, and even with charcoal or graphite. If I recall correctly, there was a lesson specifically dealing with atmosphere.
Thanks Bryan and Erik 🙂. It is a difficult medium – you have to be on your toes as there’s little chance to erase once something’s down. I really am enjoying it though. It’s helping me to move a little further away from copying photos; loosening up and making more creative choices like choosing brush strokes and finish, colour, lighting. I feel like I’m beginning to interpret a photo rather than just copy it and I have a much bigger knowledge ‘bank account’ than I did a few months ago. I think if I just keep building that and pushing my drawing and creative boundaries, I’ll get there.
Day 17: I’ve done as much as I’ll do for this page, unless anybody wants to give me feedback on how I could improve it. For a first attempt, I feel reasonably pleased. I ended up losing the light in the bottom head because I laid the half tone in the forehead too dark, forcing me to take the other values too dark to reinstate the contrasts I needed.
It was good to start with a single colour – I’ll practice a lot more this way before I try to move to true colour. There’s enough to practice with just one.
Erik, I’ve watched that lesson of Glen’s before. I know exactly what you mean and I’m working to let go of my perfectionism and allow myself the creative freedom to do this kind of thing. I’ll get there 🙂!
PS if you’re wondering why I make my models bald, it’s because for the moment, I want to make sure I’m getting the cranium right and not just just covering my ignorance with hair.
30 x 40cm / approx 12 x 16” watercolour on Arches hot press paper.
Day 18: I spent a lot of today watching perspective videos and drew just the basics of setting up 2 point perspective scenes. It didn’t feel very productive. It seems to me that my challenge is perhaps too broad. I feel like I’m skimming over too much that needs large amounts of focus and repetition. At least with figure/head drawing, it may be best to leave the difficult mediums for now and just keep learning to draw? I need to make a couple of extra hours a day.
That feeling is normal.
I think realistically you have to keep moving and revisiting as relearning prior material because there is a iterative loop where things you learn in one area unlock doors in other areas and if you just try to grind it out you can sometimes get stuck. The fundamentals are the most important but also try things take breaks and jump around.
Drawing is the core skill you use for everything else so it doesn’t hurt to spend most of your time there but there are things you get from painting such as practice with value arrangements than can help your understanding of drawing as well.
Day 19: I watched Steve Huston’s nose video again today and drew these noses from the 3D Planes of the Head model. I find noses tricky, so this was good practice.
Great work on those noses, Deborah! I liked that you studied from all those difficult angles, and I think you got a good solidity overall.
Thank you Isabella 🙂. I’ll try them from portrait photos next I think.
I’ve finally worked out why that bottom head of day 17 bothers me so much. The perspective is too severe. I didn’t realise that you can alter the perspective on the 3D models, but you can and that makes a huge difference. I’ll do the exercise again before long with the station point much further away. I have a very busy day coming up today, so I’ll use what little time I have to draw, but I will be posting late.
Hi Deborah, I really like your watercolor heads. Besides also being interested in watercolor I share your opinion about staying monochromatic for a while.
Your Noses look really solid, I did something similar with eyes a few weeks back. Are you not having trouble seeing all the planes while working from the model? I really like the 3d models but I find it difficult to find a setting where you clearly can see every plane.
Two things I’m noticing while looking at your noses aswell as your watercolor heads is that some of the noses in fore shortened views might be a bit to short while some of them in normal angles might be a tiny bit to long but that’s just a gut feeling so It could be non sense.
Anyway in general they look really solid 👍👋
Hi Erik. I haven’t used toned paper very much at all, but I’m liking it too.
Thanks Jaylene 🙂.
Thank you Christopher. When I load the model on my iPad, I have difficulty seeing the planes also. On my computer they’re much clearer and I see the planes clearly enough to work from. I don’t know what the difference is because both have the same screen resolution, but they’re not the same.
Thanks for the comments about the measurements. I’ll go back and check them. The nose in the watercolour head was definitely too long, though the perspective issue I mentioned causes it all to be distorted.You like watercolour? It‘s new for me and will take some getting used to. I do need to focus on drawing for the moment, but I did enjoy the painting process. I find it unnerving that I can’t erase, but clean up is easy 🙂! Yes, one colour is enough for now!
Day 20: This is all I had time for today.
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