[Iliya Mirochnik]

Hi Gordon,

So I was a little bothered by the composition and perspective discrepancies on the right wall of the house so I did a draw-over using a grid to make a couple of corrections.

I feel like you didn’t need to crop the tree on the left hand side. You could also use some more perspective “hints” by adding some shadows on the ground in the foreground and allowing the trees behind the house to recede into perspective more obviously.

Other than that, it’s a lovely sketch.

Iliya

[Iliya Mirochnik]

Hi Jessica,

I like the painting set-up and I like the manner in which you are approaching it. I do think that the values are becoming a little convoluted so I made a draw-over where I kind of took a few steps back, minimized the highlights, kept the objects divided into simple light and shadow values and made sure that there are no repetitions in values. It’s extremely important to put in the table plane and make sure the background is relatively flat but with a gradient going from light to dark from the left side to the right. That gradient could be preserved on all elongated planes, because it’ll further emphasize their fact that the light is coming from the left side.

All the other details will fall into place if you take these few steps back to “regroup.”

Keep up the good work and I’d love to see where you take this.

Iliya

 

[Iliya Mirochnik]

Hi Pera,

I really like that you’re doing these tonal master copies. I don’t want to conflict with Bill is teaching when it comes to these, but I recommend almost labeling the amount of flat values that you’re seeing. Robert Henri (wrote The Art Spirit) and Harold Speed (The Science and Practice of Drawing/Painting), two great instructors from about 100 years ago recommend basically writing out what the colors/values are. So for example, something as simple as : background, face, hair, hat, shirt, collar, left hand, right hand, and whatever else. Really simple, and you know, having written them down that each is it’s own color and value, (only value in your case.) Even if you make the copies black and white, and see that one of the designated elements is the same value as another one, in your copy strive to make them different. Also, practice keeping the edges between them very, very sharp. A good way to practice is this is to use grey-scale markers, making sure to use a particular marker for a particular area and not mixing them.

I know it’s just day 2 of the challenge, but stick with it, I’ll be checking in!

Best,

Iliya

[Iliya Mirochnik]

Hi Elena,

I’m a big fan of the scribble drawing on the right! That’s a great way to build value fast and have interesting variation in line quality. I have one main suggestion and I think it’ll be obvious when I point it out. If you look at the 2 side drawings, the left and right one, you can see that you’re naturally grouping values together so there’s little confusion of what is light, dark, halftone, reflected light, etc. In the drawing in the middle, the graphite one, these distinctions become a little convoluted – the cast shadows are too distinct, the reflected lights are very bright, and most problematically, your half-tones are too dark. I recommend you begin the graphite drawings just like you did the ones in pen and marker, and very carefully build out from there. Graphite can of course offer more nuance, but I’d build up to that slowly, making sure the large tonal relationships read from a distance. Other than that, I like the drawings, although, I can’t help but mention, the abdomen is a tad long, the distance between the rib cage and pelvis is only a hand‘s width.

Keep up the great work and I’ll be checking in!

Best,

Iliya

[Iliya Mirochnik]

Hey Andrew,

I am a big fan of pen drawing myself, it forces you to make a lot of decisions and really think about what’s developing on the page. I do believe it is important to keep in mind the fundamentals, which is to say the planes of the face and how they affect the values. It’s even more important to figure out where the values go, than to get the values themselves 100 percent correct. I did a draw-over outlining the most important planes and plane-changes in the face and readjusted the values a little bit. Also, always keep in mind the relationship of the center of the lips to the center of the brow (the facial angle)

Keep up the great work,

Iliya

 

[Iliya Mirochnik]

Hey Dean,

 

I love seeing these digital portraits! I particularly like the quicker ones, I feel they’re more spontaneous and the immediacy really shows all the strengths and weaknesses of the technique. It’s easier to grow from those, I believe. I did a draw-over on top of the previous post of the girl. I basically amplified all of the reflected lights- the sky on the hair, the greens on the shirt and face, as well as darkened the face to make room for highlights. I didn’t change the lips or nose, because I haven’t seen the reference, but I do think the lips are too bright and the nose is too long. But I might be wrong there. Also, most importantly, I softened all of those strong contrasts on the neck. One rarely needs them, even if you see them, because they generally take away from the face.

Keep up the great work!

Best,

Iliya

 

[Iliya Mirochnik]

Hi Shazad,

Thank you so much for working through my course so diligently. The rib-cage is deceptively simple, and I did a draw-over on top of the front and back rib-cage drawings you’ve uploaded here to help clarify those parts that are more important to “insert” from your knowledge of the form, than from observation.

Keep up the great work, I’ll be back to check up on it!

Best,

Iliya

 

[Iliya Mirochnik]

Hi Artemisia,

I really like these structural gestures that you’re doing. I can’t wait to see more of your posts. I did a little draw-over where I solidify some of the structures that you have and make others a little more apparent. There’s not so much to comment here as just correct through the draw-over. I’ll be back to do more in the future, keep up the great work!

Best,

Iliya

[Iliya Mirochnik]

Hi Toby,

I really like that you’ve decided to spend the 100 days studying anatomy. I’m a big fan of anatomy and love it when people devote time to it. I think it’s a great idea to use bodybuilders for it and I tend to do it in my classes. What I’ve been discovering more and more is the amount of information that one really gains from studying the tendinous parts of the muscles. I think you’re doing it in part, but I would focus on it just a little bit more, for example, the 3 tendinous areas on the trapezius (around 7th cervical, at base of the spine of the scapula, bottom of trapezius around T12), the tendinous cover of the sides of the gastrocnemius (making the middle part bulge), and stuff like that. Where you can find that information, try inserting it, I think it makes a big difference. I would also recommend making structural diagrams, and of course I can’t help but recommend all of the wonderful courses focusing on anatomy on NMA. I’ll definitely be checking in on your progress.

Keep up the good work,

Iliya

[Iliya Mirochnik]

Hey Deborah,

I did a little draw over clarifying the scapula and some key parts anatomical parts. I think that you generally have everything in the right -place, but it helps to know some of these things so you could really exaggerate them to make the drawing more convincing and effective.

 

Keep up the good work!

Iliya

 

[Iliya Mirochnik]

Hi Elizabeth,

I’m so glad you’re working on the skull. I want to bring your attention to a few things. I like how you’re drawing the frontal bone and figuring out where all of those fundamental planes are. The trick is to keep your values a little more organized. Firstly, all of your shadows need to be within a more unified range, regardless of all you see in there. That then allows you to have a broader range in the lights. I think you’re modeling all the planes well, or rather, you’re differentiating between them well, but the values themselves, in the entire skull, are very similar. Some shadows are the exact values of your half-tones and many half-tones that repeat. This makes the structure considerably harder to read. But the placement is mostly all there, and the separation of light and shadow and the planes is as well; it’s the values that need to be organized a bit better. This isn’t easy, especially when you’re in the weeds with all of the anatomy, form, etc. I understand that. But from the point where you are now, this shouldn’t be too hard and will improve the work. Just a quick addition, make sure the axis of the chin aligns with the teeth, brow, etc.

Good luck, and I’ll be checking in! Keep up the great work.
Iliya

[Iliya Mirochnik]

<!–more–>Hey Victor,

That’s totally fine. I’d actually advise you to move on. Take the notes into consideration and try to apply them to more pieces, no point in lingering and beating something to death. I am a firm believer in quantity over quality, or rather, the importance of achieving a certain critical mass that itself will lead to quality. Composition is a super important topic and I feel it isn’t stressed enough in art schools here. In the Academy of Fine Arts, in Russia, where I went to school, composition was literally everything. Even when doing some academic drawing, we were always told, that before your mark becomes a form, or even a shape, or even a line, it is first and foremost a compositional element. And this changes the way you think about the whole thing.  As for resources, I know 2 good ones. The first is right here on NMA, and it’s Bill Perkins’ course. He has a long history of teaching and working with compositional elements as an Art Director at Disney and his course is quite comprehensive. Another, in my opinion, absolutely fundamental resource is an old book from around 1900 called Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgement of Pictures by Henry Rankin Poore. They did a reprint recently but totally screwed it up by heavily shortening it as well as adding completely different examples, a lot of which don’t entirely correspond to the text. Luckily the original is in the public domain! Here it is: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26638/26638-pdf.pdf.

I’m really excited about your progress and I’ll make sure to check in regularly to see what you’re doing.

Best,

Iliya

[Iliya Mirochnik]

Hi Elizabeth,

I really like the gestural qualities of these hands you’re drawing, as well as the confident marks. Although I do see that you are thinking of structure, I sketched out a couple of corrections to explain that the cross axis of each join of the fingers starting from the metacarpals and going through to the last phalanx, needs to be kept consistent. The hardest place to do this is towards the fingertips, and I see some issues there. Also, try to think of the palm as a big block and don’t forget those very important side planes. And finally, remember that the general proportion of the Metacarpal 3 ( metacarpal of the ring finger + at least some part of the carpal bone directly connected to it) is equal in length to the  phalanges of the ring finger.

Good luck, and I can’t wait to see more awesome hand drawings.

Iliya

 

[Iliya Mirochnik]

Hi Sherman,

The portraits have a lot of life in them, but I feel they could benefit from more structure. I did a little draw-over where I carved up the face into the most fundamental basic planes, and then filled in the values according to those planes. I really recommend committing those planes to memory and applying them even from imagination when drawing the portrait. It time you’ll begin seeing them.

 

[Iliya Mirochnik]

Hi AJ,

I think this is a solid copy, and I agree with Christopher that the values are quite good. I do think that it might be time to try to apply values in a more analytical/anatomical way. I have included a draw over where I laid out some of the important forms and planes of the torso, rib cage, and pelvis. This is to help you begin placing values based on the special relationship of a given plane to the lightsource. Also whenever you encounter lots of cloth covering limbs (and anything really) try to sketch the limb from its anatomical origin and then place the drapery over it.

Keep up the good work and I’ll be checking.

[Author]

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