Orinoco first thanks for the input. I am very two sided brain wise. I am very good at learning new tasks figuring out things like programming. I learned object-C in a very short amount of time when all I had was a Programming class back in High School. Two months and a week and half to both learn and create, a program for a company I was interning at. I am also creative. So my brain does things differently. Still for me doing the grid helped me to know I see things and think they are bigger then they really are. So that has its place and is helping.
Yet What you said is also very helpful. Speaking of which I am curious exactly what you mean by drawing symbols rather then what I see? What I think you are saying is if I see a face and its at a different angle where lets say the nose is is going to be partly hidden. Instead of me drawing the nose as it is seen by the eye. I start drawing it how my brain thinkgs and tries to put in two nostrils. I will be uploading a bunch of my old High School art work. Its going to be a horror show of bad art. Still it is art even then.
Our brain deals in symbolic representations of things. It is a way we have of coping with the load of incoming sense impressions. Routine stuff is ‘tagged’ by our brain as a symbol, nothing to worry about, put it in a compartment and forget about it, while non-routine stuff is brought to the forefront and ‘makes an impression.’
Putting two nostrils in a nose when in the actual pose, you can only see one, is a very good example. Another is the “CBS Icon” eye shape. I have watched beginning drawing students really struggle drawing a simple chair, because they KNOW a chair has a rectangular seat, a rectangular back and four legs, and they try to draw all those elements and it looks wrong, because at their viewing angle, the seat is seen on edge, only three legs are visible, and the rectangular chair back is actually a rhomboid.
But the brain gets in the way. It really doesn’t matter how well or poorly anyone’s particular brain works, thats just what the brain is supposed to do. But it does get in the way of creating art. I should say, realistic art. There are some very useful exercises in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. In fact, take a look at some of her students’ before and after drawings. Some of the drawings are dated, and were done only six or seven weeks apart. She gets some amazing results in her classes.
The main thing, though, is practice. The 100th face you draw will be better than the 10th. The 1000th face will be better still. But there is no shortcut to get from the 10th to the 1000th.
For me as long as I am using a reference I can see the distortion of squishing the size or only putting one thing in still not that great at putting it into the picture but I can see it. For me my greater challenge is my brain saying that is bigger then it really is. Example in sketching out a face I kept drawing the eyes to big. The mouth also was a little to big. The Grid helped me see how much I do that. By letting me compare the two I could see how much I over proportioned and to accommodate for that. So for me that thing was helpful but only so far.
As you saidThe main thing is Practice. Some people can draw a human figure from memory because they have done it so much. For me and the Symbolic stuff you mentioned when I am drawing from memory Then my brain takes over and it is never right. Even in drawing a cube just from my head and no reference I get the top more square then it should be from a top front angled view. The more you practice the better you get. Though I was tempted to start this response with a joke saying well what if the 1000th looks the same as the 10th.
This goes into my segway for my next posts. I Just took a bunch of pictures of old Artwork I did back in High School. Once I have prepared them to be small enough in memory size to upload I will. Note though first I was impatient back then. Pretty much I would get something to where it had the base color and I said its done. Two I had a hard time seeing the flow and movement of Tones. A hard time in the shading and layering. Pretty much my stuff looked flat. Funny thing is doing 3D animation and such has really helped me with that. Still I have a lot more to learn even now. Of course I learn most when conversing and getting helpful tips and chats. So thanks.
I agree with you about drawing as frequently as possible from life. Exercises in anatomy will only ever take you so far and rules such as ‘seven heads in a body’ are a good guideline but in my experience people come in very different shapes and sizes. You don’t have to draw real people in the moment, photographs are fine too but they offer a different experience and every good artist will tell you to find real people in real places because it offers a more fleeting, intimate experience and you will learn more. Also draw old and ugly people, while we all love drawing bodacious bikini babes the old and ugly have so much more to offer visually and you learn more in the process. Just ask Lucien Freud:
Sounds like we are all on the same page Practice. Though I probably would of done more Picture drawing for people if you guys had not spoken and helped. So that is a thanks. Also I like what wokjow said about the drawing things we may not think are as appealing to the eye but that will offer up a greater reward of knowledge in the end. So thanks to both.
Note this stuff Is being posted is my old stuff I did In High School the only critique I will want is if you see me still doing something wrong that I did back then. I will let you know when we are at the end of the High School stuff and back to new stuff. Now note back in High School I was lazy and impatient even in Art something I loved. So I got something to the well the base color is down now to really start painting stage. Yet for me I said its done. I also didn’t see the shading and making it flow with the shape.
KimmH Thanks for the input but not clear on which thing you are talking aout? You talking about the scanning or the Digital painting? Also on the painting with the arch and a face would you say the base color I already have for the face is a mid tone or dark tone? The face should be a light Caucasian. Not super light though.
In watercolor you can use a ‘thirsty’ brush by squeezing out a lot of the water. Pick up a bit of color and spread it on a surface like a glass surface, adding a small bit of water to get the consistency you want, something like heavy cream works well. You can drag the side of the brush lightly over the sopt you want to paint and do that several times. A small hair dryer, cheap and available in a lot of thrift shops, can speed drying between layers. Masking tape works really well and how flat you lay the paper can make a difference.
I am currently working a lot with skin tones in Gimp and Krita and have examples in imgur and on other forums if you want. I would need to check the blenderartist rules about posting URLs to other sites since I’m new to blender and this forum.
You have a good base understanding of portraits. What I would suggest you to pay attention to are the eyes and how color layers to create the tones of the skin and hair. Careful about letting your shadows become too grid-like and uniform. The human face is full of a multitude of color and value. Even the white of the eyes have shadows. I would start studying specific areas of the face in black and white and then start worrying about color. Also might want to pay attention to the five eye rule as a base rule for the width and position of the eyes for a frontal view.
Reikurai. I am going to be assuming you are speaking of the Digital painting. I actually overlaid that over the image and everything is as in the reference photo. Yet as@Orinoco said sometimes you need to stop painting the model and start painting the canvas. I agree though my eyes are not so great specially if I try it without a reference.
My skin is alright but the hair is a bit more difficult for me. Thanks for the specific suggestion of the Black and white. Also if you know of any good tutorials or references that would best help in the specific areas you see then let me know. I actually have some full body digital images I painting where the skin looks pretty good. I had been practicing that. Yet the hair was no where near good. So thanks and if you know of any tutorials or specific references that focus on those aspects that really need the most improvement please do share.
“Lazy and Impatient”… lol
My friend, that is what your brain tells you when IT has finished putting the symbol on the paper. “We are done here, let’s move on, what more do you want?” Your creative side looks at the drawing and sees something missing, but the noisy side won’t shut up long enough to let you figure out what that missing piece is.
So you need to find ways to fool your brain into getting out of the way.
Things that work for some people: turn your reference upside down, make it unrecognizable to your symbol processing brain, and just look for color swatches and paint those shapes.
When working digitally: zoom your work and your reference way out, lose the details, and try to see where the proportions are different. (when working in physical media, step way back from your work, like 20 to 30 feet back, and look at the proportions)
When working digitally: use flip horizontal to get a fresh look at your work. (when working in physical media, look at your work in a mirror)
When working in physical media, turn the lights off and squint at your work and your reference. When working digitally, make a copy, desaturate and blur it (and your reference) and compare the two.
I do have more High School ones but they are on slides. I do not have at this moment a way to convert them. I used to have a machine that did it but it broke. Any way here are some more recent test pictures. Useally I was testing techniques or a medium. The first two are Digital the last is Crayon. I have more but will upload those later.
