[Jan]

What an incredibly beautiful and stirring painting. I think this is your best work yet. I can’t imagine anything I would change. It seems perfect. I have to believe this will be a family treasure. Your wife must absolutely love it!

[Jan]

Thank you so much for the feedback, Joshua! I’m amazed at the quality of not only the instruction on this site but also the enthusiasm for sharing information. Alex has been incredible in documenting both his own progress as well as with inspiring and helping others. I can definitely see how much clearer the form becomes in your draw over without the distraction of so much detail!

[Jan]

Thank you, Joshua. I really appreciate your critique! I’ve been trying to draw like I’m running my finger over the form, but I get lost sometimes when I’m trying to also develop the value gradient. I definitely see how your cross contour line communicates the actual form more accurately.

[Jan]

I love your self-portrait! It seems very personal while also reflecting the graphic style of Tamara de Lempicka. I wasn’t familiar with her work, so I looked her up. She’s fascinating! I get very distracted with detail, and I think your drawing is a great example of the power of simplicity in presenting an idea. Your shading is beautiful by the way!

[Jan]

Hi Christopher! I just wanted to say that I’m impressed with both your dedication and your drawings! I’m going through the same learning process and much of the same courses, and I can totally relate. Your realization that you can only soak in so much information and that you don’t need everything at once is something I just came to terms with. As far as your question about reference photos of individual bones, you might want to look at the Anatomy Standard website. I’ve found it be quite helpful. Keep up the great work!

[Jan]

I just commented in my skull study open critique about your great suggestions. I came here to tell you how excited I am about all I’ve learned from your posts in the last few days. Then I saw the posts from Iliya and Joshua. Wow!!! Their comments and recommendations were amazing. I liked hearing that even Iliya has to review the names of the cephalometric points! Like they both said, keep up the great work and keep sharing!

[Jan]

Here is the corrected drawing which I think reads better. I watched the section of the lesson again where Iliya said always go back and make sure all the lines on the face are parallel or slightly converging. I actually did start out working within the box, but I got off track after I cleaned up some of the construction lines. Thanks again for pointing it out, Erik! Hopefully I’ll be able to start recognizing perspective errors as I begin to internalize the concepts.

[Jan]

Thanks for the recommendation, Erik! I was looking at Erik Olson’s series, but I’ll definitely check out Gary Meyer too. The portrait is beautiful! I love the eyes.

[Jan]

Thanks so much, Alex! The podcast was great! I watch Proko videos quite a bit. That was interesting how they analyzed “process”. Following along with live demonstrations and then trying to integrate the same technique (and “feel process”) is something I’ve found very beneficial. It was interesting that the images they said they learned from the most from were the Bridgeman head and Loomis Head. I started studying the Loomis Head based on your recommendation and it definitely made a difference for me. Their reference to John Gnagy surprised me. I had his Learn to Draw book when I was young and have never heard anyone mention his name since then. After doing some searching, I found an article about a retrospective of his work that ran this summer at a Chicago gallery. The article has a quote by Warhol where he said that Gnagy taught him to draw. It’s always fascinating to learn where inspiration comes from! And finally, it’s encouraging to know there’s visible improvement in my second skull study!

[Jan]

Hi Alex! Thank you so much for your detailed feedback! I replied to your other post and will say again in this one how appreciative I am for your advice and for the encouragement. NMA is incredible both for the quality of the instruction and for the opportunity to connect with such amazing participants.

Your suggestion to feel the form is very timely for where I’m at right now. I’ve been trying follow the advice to think like a sculptor and build forms slowly like you’re handling clay. Imagining the planar topology is also an excellent recommendation, as are all your other suggestions. I did follow Vilppu in real time during his planes of the face lesson as well as Iliya. What was useful to me was to adapt to their pace and follow their decision making as they work around the piece. It seemed like a live version of copying a master drawing, and it forced me to take a different approach than I normally take. I’m posting a skull drawing from the same pose that I did after following Iliya. It took me about four times as long as following him, but I felt like I did develop my technique a little more.

Also, I’m glad it looks like I’m making some progress. I appreciate the support!

[Jan]

Wow! I’m honored and extremely appreciative of the time you took to go into such detail in your reply to my post. Once again, you have offered invaluable advice. You’re enormously talented, and you convey information well! You should consider teaching in the future. Thank you, too, for the encouragement. I’m on information overload at this point. I like the Drawabox 50% rule and think I need to mix in more drawing for fun.

I plan to go through the specific information in your post as I revisit perspective concepts and work on more skull studies. As you pointed out, the Huston/Loomis simplified method may be enough, but I do want to try your approach of thinking in terms of the sagittal and coronal plane and plotting lines. I think it will make sense once I actually start to draw it. I agree with you that memorizing ALL the names isn’t necessary for now and to concentrate instead on the basic framework so to speak. I just found a website called Anatomy Standard that I started using to view individual bones which has been useful. You might find it interesting. I also have Netter’s Anatomy Coloring Book in my Amazon cart right now as well. I will definitely touch base if I have questions or discover something worth sharing. Thanks again for all of your help!

[Jan]

Your 100 Day Challenge has been so instructive for me. Like someone else posted, it’s frustrating to not feel qualified to offer any kind of useful critique, so I’ll just say WOW. The mural is incredible, and I’m in awe of your Day 44 perspective study. I’m not sure if you saw my reply to your comments regarding my Planes of the Head drawing, but the tips were extremely valuable. I’m getting ready to revise that drawing right now. Thanks again for the help and also for the inspiration you’ve provided posting your progress!

[Jan]

I absolutely love this painting! I’m working on skull studies right now as part of the Russian Academic Drawing Course, so I was immediately drawn to your subject matter. (It’s interesting that were working on portraits of our sons at the same time too!). I’m so impressed with not only your accuracy in terms of representation but also your technique. The overall feel of the painting is like a Dutch still life. I think your work is exceptional.

[Jan]

This looks great, Alex! I’m still working on skull construction, so I’m impressed with your progress. I feel like I’m spending too much time finishing the drawings when I could benefit more from quick studies right now. I also felt like I was assimilating the information reasonably well until I hit a wall trying to memorize the cephalometric points. My husband, a dentist, told me cephalometric analysis is used in treatment planning and orthodontic diagnosis and takes time to learn. That did help me feel a little less frustrated! Iliya’s explanations of the reasoning behind the names has helped give some meaning, too, instead of it being just rote memorization. Also, I’ve been combining the Loomis Head Method with Steve Huston’s method (as you had suggested previously) when drawing portraits and have found that works well for me. I thought I would use it when drawing the six skulls from imagination, so I’ll see if it gets too complicated combined with Iliya’s method. The drawabox method sounds like it might be helpful to me as well since I need to revisit perspective in understanding the planes of the head. I really have appreciated all your insights!

[Jan]

Thank you so much, Erik! I really appreciate your critique, and the diagram is extremely helpful. Drawing the planes of the head correctly was much more difficult than drawing the geometric forms in the previous exercises. I became so focused on following Iliya’s strokes, trying to align the planes, and understanding the light and shadow that I didn’t realize I had neglected perspective in this assignment. I always thought perspective was a tool for showing distance, so using it in portrait work is a new concept to me. I can see why Andrew Loomis said the handling of perspective in portrait drawing marks the difference between an amateur and professional artist! Thanks again for taking the time to provide such valuable feedback.

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