New User: Help Wanted

[enz]

Here is a picture I drew for a class I had been taking. I was wondering if anyone had any extra tips or help to give for me. I would really like some help on drawing hair as it makes up most of any portrait.

http://enzyver.home.insightbb.com/images_/port_girl.jpg

[draw]

The trick to hair and portraits is to keep doing them until you feel they are perfect and people will hand over money to own one.

Seriously though, I do like this drawing but can see you are a beginner. Do more portraits from life, learn anatomy and how to do portraits without reference, use references as well to learn parts you haven't mentally grasped, study master portraits - holbein, android, bougeareau, da vinci, find some of your own. Most of all remember the inspiration you felt doing this one and how happy you were at the result.

Hair can be an important part of a portrait but I would not say the most important, if you want to be an artist then the intent of the portrait is the most important. The hair you've done here is not incorrect its just one way of doing it, the more portraits you observe/draw/study your methods will change depending on media/application. Hope my rambling helped. :}

[Gregory Wohlwend]

first off, i think the drawing is a great start but needs to be pushed. Let's face it, you're starting out and to learn you have to make mistakes, I know it's at a point where it seems like the best thing you've ever done, but to push this drawing (especially pencil, a forgiving medium) will teach you many things even if it doesn't look quite how you wanted it to.

As for hair, and the overall technique within the portrait it looks like you have a case of the outlines, or at least thinking of drawing as representing the thing in your head rather than the thing in your eyes. If you forget what you're looking at at start looking at the shapes that the light creates on that object/person, then you'll start to get some of the detail in the face and especially the hair that appears so remedial. While it is a good idea to follow the "grain" of the hair, sometimes that corners the drawing into a specific style or highlight strategy.

(something that may help, although maybe it's just a shameless plug for my favorite medium, but try using a really cheap ballpoint pen, you know a simple white bic black pen and play with the values you can get out of it. It'll force you to work up value general to specific...)

hopefully that helps, and by no means am i as much of an expert as most of the artists on this forum doing figure and portrait drawings.

[Dizon]

The thing with hair is, just like any other object, is that observe and keep in mind where the light is coming from and where it hits the form. Obviously the effect on the form is that there are shadow and light. Just look for those things and start shading! Remember to look for the BIG shapes first, work from big to smaller details.

Nature is the best teacher! Work from life! :yayca:

[enz]

Thanks for all the comments. I will try putting these into practice soon enough. I plan on taking some new photographs to use as reference to learn from and try to do one maybe two a week at least.

The last one and this were done in class, each took about two hours.

I really like doing the portraits though but there are some barns around my area I would like to take pictures of and reference, then make my own after a few perspective studys.

http://enzyver.home.insightbb.com/images_/barn.jpg
The flora and background could really use some work in this, but it was for learning.

[Gregory Wohlwend]

Thanks for all the comments. I will try putting these into practice soon enough. I plan on taking some new photographs to use as reference to learn from and try to do one maybe two a week at least.

The last one and this were done in class, each took about two hours.

I really like doing the portraits though but there are some barns around my area I would like to take pictures of and reference, then make my own after a few perspective studys.

http://enzyver.home.insightbb.com/images_/barn.jpg
The flora and background could really use some work in this, but it was for learning.

wow, i really like that for some reason, your style is coming through as you post more of your work. I think you could still push the values, altough you may want to consider these not as photorealistic attempts but more as your own fine art.

[Dizon]

Thanks for all the comments. I will try putting these into practice soon enough. I plan on taking some new photographs to use as reference to learn from and try to do one maybe two a week at least.

The last one and this were done in class, each took about two hours.

I really like doing the portraits though but there are some barns around my area I would like to take pictures of and reference, then make my own after a few perspective studys.

http://enzyver.home.insightbb.com/images_/barn.jpg
The flora and background could really use some work in this, but it was for learning.

no no no no no! Don't smudge! Your still new to this so you need to study how light hits the forms! Just use the side of your pencil to fill up the darks to describe form, don't hesitate to do so. Also, since you said you have barns around your area why don't you just go to those places and start drawing instead of taking photographs. It's a bad habit my friend!

Work from general to the specific. Break it down into big shapes first before attempting to go any smaller for details. Know the darkest darks and the lightest lights! Always go for the larger darker masses while being aware of where the light is coming from.

Go out there and draw!

[mentler]

The eyes have it ~~~ eyes are far superior to the cameras lens <> we here two of them and the camera only has one so we see more <> I can tell instantly when someone is working from a photo because of the distortion in the camera lens (it is monocular and we are binocular, which means we see the illusion of more depth) go there <> draw there or just draw the stuff around you everyday i.e. old shoes, plants, pets, yourself, your room, etc.etc.~~~ don't waste to much time worrying about what to draw just draw!!!

[enz]

These were both used by setting up a grid just to get the large shapes down. Both were also enlarged too. I would really like to get into digital painting too , or just painting for that matter. But i feel as i need to learn to draw well and learn colors/values before anything else.

[enz]

I'm starting a new picture...

http://enzyver.home.insightbb.com/new_01.jpg

[enz]

Heres like 10min into it... basic shadeing - friend stopped by and interrupted me :\

The ref is a picture of my girlfriend.

http://enzyver.home.insightbb.com/images_/new_02.jpg

[Gregory Wohlwend]

Heres like 10min into it... basic shadeing - friend stopped by and interrupted me :\

The ref is a picture of my girlfriend.

http://enzyver.home.insightbb.com/new_02.jpg

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

so you have this "girlfriend" but she won't be kind enough to pose for you? You should be starting out with life drawing anyway, and it's a cute little thing for you two to do together, you might even get to make out later! <3

If you use that picture, you will learn about 10% of what you would have drawing from life, and you may even create some bad-hard-to-reverse-habits...

[Lung_bug]

heya
i see you're going for the tonal approach. this is a fun thing, and there's plenty of people who do this breathtakingly, but- problems arise when you try doing something without refs. therefore, study the structure, as i like to say, learn the 'why', then the 'how' part comes easily. if you know that a barn is basically two cubes intersecting, and if you know how a cube acts in a certain lighting, then you'll be able to draw it from any angle and under any kind of light. this stuff gets repeated all the time, try to look it up. lemen wrote about it a lot, i posted at least four or five posts concerning this. keep at it and look at how others do it. reverse engineering is a good way of learning.

cheers