[Leo DiFraia]

Unfortunately, I haven’t watched many of the courses here yet so I couldn’t make a recommendation. This is a lecture I recorded of one of my life drawing classes. It demonstrates how to use toned paper with white conte crayon. I think it would be helpful for you in terms of thinking about how to approach these kinds drawings. I don’t leave hatch marks in this drawing, but you certainly could. Pay attention to the type of paper I use. That makes a world of difference in terms of mark-making.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLPMgWOVTV4

 

[Leo DiFraia]

Much sharper and more interesting line this time. Keep working at it.

Check the angle and placement of the ear. It feels too far forward and too vertical.

The toned paper needs some contrast with the color you’re using. Are you planning to use black and white charcoal over this?

[Leo DiFraia]

The last one is my favorite because of the strong interesting line work particularly in the fingers closest to us.

You have the anatomy down quite nicely. Shading and mark-making are the elements you might work on. The mark-making is unnecessarily rough and the shading leaves the forms rather flat.

Shading on toned paper works best when you leave some space between the shadows (charcoal) and the highlights (white). By drawing the white charcoal across the whole plane, you flatten it completely.

When you were drawing, did you put the paper directly on your table or a drawing board? It’s a good idea to have a small stack of papers under the paper you’re working on. The extra padding allows the charcoal to contact more of the paper surface leading to smoother marks.

Finally, the shadow across the palm of the right hand is odd to say the least and I don’t know why all those lines are in the heel of the left hand. If you meant to show the palm bunching up some more subtle shading would have been appropriate rather than strong lines.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Leo DiFraia.

[Leo DiFraia]

Hi Sophie,

Is this a toned paper drawing. I see what could be some white charcoal on the nose, but nowhere else… It helps to give some information about your drawing and what sort of critique you’re looking for. Usually, you already know what’s wrong and just want some confirmation.

There are two proportion issues for you to check on your reference:

a. The width of the left side the of face seems like it could be too large. Check the proportions all the way along the eyes. Including the width of the nose and glabella which seem too large.

b. The lips don’t line up with the nose and the side closest to us should be bigger, not smaller than the far side. Probably if you move the philtrum to line up with the septum of the nose that might take care of everything.

I hope that helps,

Leo

 

[Leo DiFraia]

Hi Jan,

The drawing is excellent. I’m sure she will be surprised and love it.

And I’m sure you already know what I’m going to say so instead, I’ll try to show you. This is simply a matter of taste, so if you don’t like it… don’t worry. If your graphite won’t go darker, my favorite trick is to use a Prismacolor black pencil. In the future, you might also consider trying a different type of paper. This one has a lot of texture and it’s preventing you from getting sharp edges.

Forgive me if this seems presumptuous,
Leo

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Leo DiFraia.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Leo DiFraia.

[Leo DiFraia]

Hi Jan,

I wasn’t going to reply to this because Joshua said it all. However since you replied to his comment saying you “haven’t spent much time learning how to organize the light and shadow areas”, I thought I should reply. Because in essence, everything you need, you already have in your drawing. It’s not that complicated.

It’s clear from your drawing that the light is coming from the left side and leaving the front of the face in shadow. I believe what Joshua was wanting you to hear is that:

a. you should create more contrast between the light and shadow sides of the face. Or as I usually tell my students… don’t be afraid of the dark. (have you created a strong/rich value scale with your pencils yet?)

b. do not confuse reflected light values with light values. ie. The light element under the brow of his left eye and the light element sitting on the top of his left lip. These values should be shadow values; which just means that your shadow needs to be darker so that these elements can look lighter.

c. look in your reference for a core shadow along some areas where the face is turning away from the light. ie. the cheek, the nose, the chin, the neck.

d. last thing I would add is some value on his shirt. I know it’s meant to be a white shirt, but white doesn’t look white when it’s in shadow.

PS. I love and appreciate all the work that went into the hair.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Leo DiFraia.

[Leo DiFraia]

Here are some general questions for when  you don’t know what to do next:

Contrast – Do you have a full range of values? Do the shadow values clearly separate themselves from the light values or is there ambiguity?

Edge quality – Which edges do I want to emphasize in order to draw attention and which edges can be softened?

Mark-making – Do the marks create interest/express confidence or are they timid and tentative?

Background – Is the background an integral part of the composition?

Texture – Would a texture or a pattern create valuable interest?

Focal point – Why did I draw this? What interested me? Have I done what I could to communicate that to the viewer?

 

 

[Leo DiFraia]

Portrait painting comes after portrait drawing which comes after drawing! Think of it as “wax on – wax off” Mr. Myagi from the Karate Kid

If you had said you wanted to learn to paint landscapes that would be a different story. But now, you want to paint figures without learning to draw … tsk tsk 🙂

The problem is everyone is intimately familiar with what a portrait or a figure looks like and everyone will notice the smallest flaw.

Practice drawing first. When you’re comfortable with a piece of charcoal, work on some portraits in charcoal.

When you’re getting the hang of that, try some landscape paintings so you can learn to use paint. Then and only then 🙂 try a portrait.

But if you want to get it out of your system, just do a portrait painting right now. There’ s no harm. At most you’ll only have wasted some paint. Post that picture in the critique section and someone will happily/humbly explain the pieces you don’t know that you don’t know.

 

[Leo DiFraia]

At this point, I would just darken the shadows.

In future drawings, I would keep my outlines very light until I knew for certain where they needed to be and then, I would work on creating thick/thin, sharp/soft, light/dark lines. Lines that are bold, confident and varied to create interest.

I would recommend looking at some portrait drawings by John Singer Sargent.

[Leo DiFraia]

Hi Tim,

There are lots of resources online about how to photograph artwork. You can find a range of videos on Youtube from highly complex to very simple set-ups. If you shot the image with your phone, you likely have all of the tools necessary to manipulate the final image. It’s going to take a bit of research on your part.

But the best/simplest advice I can give is boiled down to this:

a. Take the photo in an outdoor shady area preferably around mid-day

b. include a commercially printed value scale in your picture. You can get one for a few dollars.

c. learn to use the tools you have on your camera/phone to edit the photograph so that the value scale in the picture represents as accurately as possible the value scale you placed there.

[Leo DiFraia]

Hi Nicole,

The paintings are lovely, the photos are not doing them justice. I have edited one below so you could see the difference for yourself. I would recommend you do an online search about photographing drawings for more help. And I also recommend you photograph a commercially printed value scale next to your drawing so you can easily make adjustments.

There are still some issues with this edited version. (there is a weird color cast from the light source and camera you used) and unfortunately, color is the main element of watercolor paintings.

[Leo DiFraia]

Hi Tim,

The drawing itself is nicely done. I wonder if you couldn’t crop out some of the less interesting background. The apple on the left looks the best along with its reflection, the right one, seems a little more smeared and so you lose some of the beauty of the pastel medium.

There appears to be an issue with the perspective. The surface the apples and pitcher are sitting on doesn’t match the space. It should be getting wider as it comes closer to us.

Finally, I have to comment on the photograph of the drawing. I can tell by the masking tape at the top that the photo isn’t a good representation of the original. You’ve done a good job getting an even light over the whole drawing, but the final exposure and likely the white balance are off. I recommend you photograph your drawings with a commercially printed value scale so you can easily edit the photo. This is especially important for toned paper drawings.

Hope that helps,

Leo

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Leo DiFraia.

[Leo DiFraia]

Hi Brittney,

First thing I would say is you’ve drawn two real people. By that I mean that somehow, without looking at your reference, I know you’ve captured their likeness. Well done.

If that was easy for you then you might start to consider using stronger values and improving your mark-making.

Right now, the outline seems to be what the drawings are focused on but the line itself isn’t varied or interesting enough to capture our imagination. It is often blurry and thick meaning you’ve gone over it multiple times. If you need to, start out light and keep your drawing light until you’re ready to make some bold marks.

The other suggestion is to darken your shadows. They seem very tentative at this point. There should be a strong difference between your light halftones and your shadow values.

It might help too to photograph your drawings and then edit the photo so that your paper looks white not gray/brown.

I hope that helps.

Leo

[Leo DiFraia]

Hi Sourav,

The drawing has some lovely elements. I especially enjoy the hair curls and the quirkiness of the bandaid on the triceps. The line work adds some nice rhythms to the right arm accenting the bones and overlapping muscles. The highlights on the gluteus medius, great trochanter and the right trapezius as it snakes down between the spine and scapula work nicely but could have been added in other places as well.

Things I would want you to watch out for are:

Overall proportion of pelvis to back (pelvis feels a little small)

The sharp/dark line running along the spine that tends to flatten out the whole back – it works as an outline. It doesn’t need to be so dark or sharp to do the work.

The plane of the back seems rather flat in fact also because there is no indication of the curvature in terms of light. I don’t know what reference you used, but light diminishes in intensity as it moves away from the light source – the inverse square law. At present, the top of the trapezius is darker than the pelvis. An uncommon situation in most lighting setups.

Similarly, the right side triceps is a slightly horizontal surface which would catch more light than the vertical lower arm.

Finally, there is not a sense that the scapula are on different planes (right arm turning back toward us vs. the left arm relaxed forward) other than the shapes you’ve drawn. Value would serve here as well.

I hope that helps you in the future.

[Author]

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