Charcoal/conte portrait from figure class

[Pibborando]

Concentrating on portraiture and light/shadow relationships. This was started last week and finished today. Two class periods, about an hour and a half of work time each.

I feel like I'm still not describing as much as I could be with my marks. It took a lot of slow building up and refinement to get to "finished" and I think I could be more efficient. Let me know what you think.

Thanks!

[panchosimpson]

Your values are much too extreme, squint to put things in proper relation to each other...your edges are too hard, esp where the forehead meets background...study the structure of the head well, look at bridgman, vilppu, etc copy some master drawings and I would say don't do that many long studies at this point, what you need is mileage...the problems with your study in terms of placement, etc (the mouth) need to be addressed in the first 10 minutes of drawing the head, so do a lot of quicker....say 20 minute studies...you'll eventually work your way up to something more finished.....get a skull if you can, it'll help tons. If you want a good example of descriptive markmaking in portrait drawing, take a look at Greuze' s head drawings

[panchosimpson]

http://americanartist.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/11/14/0711greuze1_477x600_2.jpg

there's a greuze, hope this helps

[Pibborando]

Thanks panchosimpson. That's just the kind of advice I was looking for. I realize I've been in the habit of making the darkest shadow I see black and the lightest I see white instead of paying closer attention to absolutes.

I'll look at those artists' works you listed. Thanks.