[Carlos Perez]

I haven’t study that course of Steve though i love how steve gives his lectures always  good info in them. Thnks for the recommend Boris

 

[Carlos Perez]

Hey BeeDee Thnks ::) i’ll keep an eye on my proportions and core shadows

 

[Carlos Perez]

Hey, Pillai

Really good work, I see you have a nice understanding of the portrait and I liked the look of the beard, One thing you can improve is your way of asking for feedback, letting us know what aspect of drawing or painting you are working on your exercise, letting us know what was your initial attempt will help us to analyze the subject and see where we can improve, otherwise is too much information to give feedback on so we get paralyzed in front of all the possibilities.

For example, in this portrait, you could have focused on the likeness and tell us to evaluate it so then we could check a photo of Joaquin and compare the painting with the phot0 and suggest you some changes,
that’s one example however your initial intention could be whatever you choose, tone studies, edges, composition, brushmanship,   etc

Thanks for sharing it with us ::)

 

[Carlos Perez]

Hi Jack, I loved the focal points of the top female portrait, I congrats on your extensive and specific way of asking for feedback.

You certainly  achieved your goal of placing your features and placements  correctly though there’s something that doesn’t quite fit on the bottom male portrait, I’d say it needs more backhead, the dark nastro’s lines pop up too much and i feel that focal point is not that interesting and the forehead feels too squearish in my opinion, however the main goal was achieved.

About the training routine I’d recommend doing 20 Mts lay-ins ( and 2 value portraits ) instead of 2hrs and drawing a bunch of features  in all positions  from photos and from imagination to process the already learned Reading about their functions, i used to do that accompanied with reading Beverly halle book on artitic anatomy.  I was doing one week on each feature, using the first 2 hrs of my  day, after drinking coffe and taking some breakfast  so i could be as fresh and ready to learn as possible.

Your portraiture is quite good, I know you’re focused on the rendering aspect and your goals are portraiture based  however i’d suggest as well dabble on the figure, perspective, composition, and art history, so we avoid overworking only one aspect like that guy that only works out biceps at the gym jahajhaja.

Thanks for sharing Jack  ::)

[Carlos Perez]

Hi Birgith, At first glance It looks great, kind and lovely however I feel something could get better on the snout zone, I’m doubting between the perspective or the hard edges, I’d say it’s a matter of losing the edges to describe a rounded form rather than a squarish one and keeping the tone of that part to describe the shadow.

That’s my opinion anyway.

Thanks for sharing ::)

 

[Carlos Perez]

Hey David, that hand looks really good and the portrait as well, it has good structure,  i can see you put a lot of effort into this one, though the overall obscure tone on the drawing, the high contrast in the eyes make it looks scary and plus the off placement of the eye gives us a weird feeling,  which is not bad , that would be perfect in a terror movie poster for example.

i would suggest taking more time on your initial drawing structure “as much as per needed” before going into value and details, taking time to look a the drawing upside down, on a mirror, that always help finding initial errors.

I know it happens that after putting the values we notice there are some errors on the placement or proportion and it’s way difficult to fix them on that stage than at the initial structure.  I personally remember this phrase my teacher used to say ” don’t put gasoline on the fire” .

 

Thanks for Sharing ::)

 

 

Thanks for sharing it ::)

[Carlos Perez]

Hey Christina, Thanks, yeah well that course of Bill is super full of cool stuff about comp, I learned a lot .  Recomended for sure.

[Carlos Perez]

Hey Timo,  yeah some “wip” drawings are just great,   i like your progress so far, i can see a solid base drawing though i would tone more the reflexed light on the breasts.

I would suggest working on the line of the legs and head, maybe barely suggest the forms of them with thin to thick lines so they guide us to the  “the chest”, so we have a variety from line and chiaroscuro on our overall composition.  I would do that, just my suggestion thought.

 

Thanks for sharing ::)

 

[Carlos Perez]

Hey Holii, the overall portrait convinces me, it looks “real”, I would add a bit more of the jaw at the right down part of her face though, structure-wise that’s the thing i’d change,  the hair looks well, the proportions seem correct, good stuff.

value-wise I would suggest you add more value (get darker) on your block-in. A mid-dark value on the shadows would help the image to pop up and that tells us that the effect of light is happing there.

Thanks for sharing your work ::)

[Carlos Perez]

Hi Edgar, The drapery is great, the perspective on the pair of scales looks goof, the overall pose of Themis looks well established, the 2 value chiaroscuro seems to work however the overall composition confuses me it doesn’t feel designed by choice , I feel the shapes guide me through the image however they lose my attention at some point.

Thanks for sharing your artwork ::)

[Carlos Perez]

Hello Yan, great job, good use of tone pattern :  black/white/black

The overall structure ( proportions and placement) looks great, otherwise, the 2 values would show the errors on it.

I would suggest you keep your block-in tone as uniform as possible, at this stage we want to read only one flat black tone and one flat white tone ( tone of the paper), I personally do this by using the side of a long tip charcoal pencil doing strokes from top to bottom.

Remember to keep the drawing on this stage on two values, avoiding details,  so when you feel your base is good already you can scale it easily from there adding values to a final piece.

Cheers ::)

[Carlos Perez]

Hey Christina, good job, and i congrats you on your exercise with that clear intentionality

 

I can see that your focal point is on the profile,  which has very good structure and brush strokes, i would say the values are well accomplished most of the shapes seem well-depicted value except the hard edge of the jaw, i can’t say exactly the reason why but there’s something there,  i would say it doesn’t look natural.

 

I like the color use here, hair looks well as well as the front shoulder nevertheless the clavicle looks off,  i agree with you on taking it out the focal point, I’d do that or work more on it.

 

Cheers ::)

[Carlos Perez]

Hey Edgar, it looks very clean, the portrait reads well, the shadows are well placed they describe the same girl I see in the picture, Great Job.

I’m not familiar with the Russian approach however in the case you want to depict the portrait as similar as nature I suggest you getting darker with your shadows on the face and especially the hair.

Remember that the hair has a local value ” a value inherent ” which is darker in this case because of the dark hair still nice drawing.

 

 

[Carlos Perez]

Hi Elaine, good work here, the overall looks well, we recognize a young female 2 vale painted portrait with shadows and lights well distinguished, I’m sure you achieve your goal in this excersie.

I could advise you to get your block-in( your shadows) darker, we do need a clear gap between light and shadow zones and i feel them very closed in the value scale.

A little thing to fix as well is your cropped hair, you can fix that by centering your portrait drawing so we avoid having cropped hair ( in this case), I personally do it right from the beginning by framing the drawing, other than that you have a great exercise there.

Cheers::)

[Carlos Perez]

Hey Richard,  when do I know when to stop? I usually give myself an initial intention, I do ask myself a couple of questions and then write down what I am trying to accomplish with the drawing so i can notice what i’m looking for and stop when I’ve achieved it

I often ask myself

– What do I want to focus on?

-What am i practicing?

-What’s the pourpuse?

-What’s the topic?

I could focus on many aspects ( in this case) of a drawing so with these questions i help myself to settle down an idea of what I’m trying to do and therefore recognize it when I see it

Let’s say i want to draw a portrait.  Here I start choosing my focus,  in this case, I choose to draw a portrait of an old man, i decide that i want people to look at his old wrinkles that surround his eyes.

In this case my intention would be , an old’s male portrait focusing on his eyes and especially his wrinkles, so i would know that my drawing is finished when my drawing depicts the face of an old man and my attention got caught by his wrinkles ( i got that by putting many more details on them).  This meaning that i could decide as well to leave parts of the drawing “incomplete” for example leaving the hair without any detail, that doesn’t mean it’s a wrong drawing because the hair has no details that mean my intention was to focus on another apsect the wrinkles.

In the other hand the initial intention could be the opposite, now i decide to draw a portrait and focus on the white hair and utilizing the “subtractive” technique ( erasing the hair to leave it white) and I’ll focus on the white hair because do want to practice drawing white hair with that way ( that’s the intention i initially I decided to give myself)  so  i could draw the overall basic shapes of the portrait and leave them without any detail whatsoever however i’ll just give the proper details to the hair.

Deciding an initial intention as clear as it could be will  let me know when i have reached my goal therefore when to stop .  This is the rule i give myselg .  I hope it helps you. ::)

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