Thank you very much Paulette.

These pieces were done as a gift for their grandparents. Any feedback as to how they can be improved is greatly appreciated.
Please note that it did not scan well. The pieces are darker and do not have the blue tinge
done with 2H - 4B on Strathmore Bristol 8 x 10
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Hands elude most of us unless your name is William Bouguereau or you have studied anatomy. If you understand how our right and left brain sides work, you will understand clearly why hands are so difficult. If you turn a portrait upside down and you draw it in this position the logical side of your brain can't make sense of it and a transferance occurs to the right side of your brain. This wonderful right side sees only shapes (form) and lines. When you draw the portrait this way then turn it back right side up, voila! You have a portrait. The brain forgot it was a portrait. But hands look like hands no matter which position you put them in. You can't fool your brain this time. Your left brain dominates. The only way to master doing hands is to draw them over and over. Draw your own hand, understanding the relationship of each digit to the next, look where the knuckles are placed, learn the anatomical rules of all hands. Get a woman's magazine and draw all the hands you see. In the end, you will see they are not has hard as you think!

Hi Guys,

Really good idea to get different perspectives of how people draw portraits ....some really interesting work here. This is my contribution....a quick drawing I did of my late grandfather just over a year ago. I used really textured paper, so doesnt give a realistic "skin effect", but I thought i'd try it anyway...

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I really like that! The tooth does let you get the deep dark blacks and it really make this look good! The detail you have achived within the coarse tooth effect is very interesting and pleasing to my eye!

Excellent portrait Adrian, I really like it.

I'm new to this forum...here is a portrait I did from a photo. I'd really like constructive feedback...I'm really going for as realistic as possible. I'm not happy with the necklace and the hair looks to me like it was drawn...I can't describe it, but I wish it were better...I just don't know what to do. Overall I'm pleased, but I know it can be better.

Thanks. This is my first attempt to post an image...I hope I did it right.

Excellent work Meltris!
My opinion is trying a different paper. Try using a smoother surface like Strathmore Bristol if your looking for a more realistic look. I love the detail.

I just can tell you that your work is very good. I really like it.
Kain

I honestly think you did a very good job meltris. Perhaps a little bit more contrast on the cheek would be good, as it looks a bit too flat.
There's nothing wrong with the hair in my opinion.

Thanks CoachKWL...I picked up a couple new sketch pads of smooth Bristol.

Thank you Daddy...I appreciate the feedback.

nunofrias...I see what you're saying and agree...I have thought about darkening the shading on the face. Now I believe that's what I'll do.

Thanks.

Hi Sean these are beautiful portraits!
I wouldn't change them, but for your next portrait you could work on getting rid of the outlines and letting your shading tell the whole story. Something I think you are already doing, just maybe don't have the confidence to loose those lines.
These will be awesome gifts!

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After several month of not having enough time to draw, I finally finished a portrait which was on my drawing board all that time. Working from an old, yellowed, dirty and slightly faded picture, I was not too excited the way it was going and actually wanted to throw the drawing out. But, not being a quitter, I continued on with it and ended up with something half decent. The detail in certain areas is fuzzy in the old picture, especially blown up to a larger size. I changed the angle of the pose on purpose, hopefully for the better. Seeing the images side by side now, I can tell the likeness is not that true to the original photo.
The hair was hard for me to do, and I might have to revisit this portrait again in a few days to see where it can be improved. If anyone would like to critique...please, go for it.....I want to improve and need the critique. Thanks for looking!

Christi, your portrait is very good.You captured her smile beautifully and the pose is very nice in your drawing. What I can see that could be improved likeness wise is the emphasis of the eyes.In the photo the eyes are shaded more and the left one a bit larger in the line of the eyelid.The hair looks great to me.All in all a very good portrait.

Beautiful work Christine!
The hair looks great, you could maybe pull a bit more high lights and push the darks a bit, but it looks good.
A bit more shaping of the face, with shadows, she is a bit more angular than what you have. I think you did a great job keeping the likeness. Kudos for doing that while changing the angle!
Will this be a present? Someone will be very happy, if so!

Elena, thank you for taking the time to look at this closely! Very good observation.... I'll try to work on that area some more. Thanks also for the nice words! I appreciate it!

Paulette, you are so right! Now why didn't I see that before....I'll try to work on it a bit more. Thank you so much for looking closely and giving your opinion!
This is a picture of my mother-in-law....I might give it to her eventually....if she is nice to me.

I thought I'd share this little portrait that I did of my daughter. I found a tiny wallet sized photo taken when she was about 3 and she didn't want her photo taken! Attitude abounds

This is 9 x 12 in watercolour.

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A typical 3 year old expression! I think it's great you captured that in watercolour. How old is she now? She may not appreciate it.

Norma, she'll be 30 next month (how did that happen??) And she still loves that image too, but doesn't remember the day.

Lovely, Jeanette! Did you use masking fluid for those little highlights on the lower lip?

This is my first attempt at a portrait in coloured pencil. I found the skin tones really difficult to get. Dogs are easier!!

I find this portrait is very good, maybe the position of the head is different, but the manage of pencils is very good. I like this portrait very much.

I saw this excellent portrait yesterday in your blog Jeannete, is the classic and cute attitude of a girl upset. Great portrait as always Jeannete.

I agree with you, animals are easier. To be the first attempt I think is good. When I made my grand son Mauricio I found how difficult CP is to draw portraits. Practice makes perfect. I am sure your going to improve you skills pretty soon.

Thanks Ernest. No, I didn't use masking fluid for the highlights, I worked around them with a small brush. I just sort of did the painting 'on the fly' and figured I would be able to preserve the highlights if I was careful. Lucky shot.

Norma, you've got a very good likeness in your drawing. Portraits can be tricky, but its all down to colour matching and values. The problem that you have is that you're working from a photo that isn't very clear and doesn't have good lighting. If you can find a better quality image, you should find it much easier to create skintones.

Thanks Kain.

Thanks for your comments, Jeanette. I realise the photo wasn't great, but I really liked his expression. It was taken in full sunlight and was part of a group. I just don't really know how to get real skin tones. I'll have another go at another one. It will be after this week as I'm going to my daughter's (Janette!) for Christmas and it will be hectic. Hope you and family have a lovely time over the holiday.

Here are a few WIPs of a portrait that I'm working on. I was striving for smooth blended tones (a great example) which is something I have not had much luck with before. Not finding any improvement even with carfeul attention to technique on this portrait, I tried different paper and think I've found the problem. My next portrait will be on smoother paper for sure.

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This is looking very good! What kind of paper did you try this time? For extremely smooth shading, you (not surprisingly) need very smooth and heavy paper, like smooth Bristol or illustration board.

This was a "Strathmore Drawing - Medium" pad that I've been using for a while. It had a picture of pencils on the front so I thought it must be good for graphite. I just bought some Bristol Smooth and plan on using it next time.

Hello Fellow artists,

I'm looking for advice on how to make this drawing look better. I'm doing this for a friend. It's done in charcoal, so changing features are pretty easy. Charcoal is real messy, but I've gotten real accustomed to the mess. Regarding the background, I'm thinking I will make it one color as opposed to how it is currently.

About Jenny, the things I'm going to do are to add more strands of hair. Some of the hair looks like its all smudged together, so no definition, I'm still working on Jen Mouth too.

Regarding Korey, I'm working on his hair as well.

Granted I'm sure a lot of you may do this entirely differently, but I'm looking for advice on ways to improve this drawing.

Regards
Gilbert

Hi Gilbert,

This is a nice start. The two main things that I'd recommend you work on are relative values of large areas, and the angle of Jen's face.

One thing that jumps out as very well done here is Jen's nose: it's very nicely sculpted. Look at the darker values you used along the left (our left) side of the nose, and look at the corresponding spot in the photo, and look at other areas in the photo with the same value (the left side of her forehead is just one of many examples) and then look back at the corresponding areas in the drawing: the nose is much darker than the left side of the forehead (for example). You have to replicate all those large areas of value to sculpt the rest of both the heads. Look at how the left side of Corey's head is in shadow, as well. Applying this all over will bring out the highlights and make everything look "rounder."

Likewise, for the hair, I would not worry about making more strands; instead, I'd concentrate on getting the values right. Both of them have beautiful "halos" in their hair; that shine is what makes hair look like healthy human hair, as opposed to felt. I don't really see the same distribution of light and dark areas in the hair in the drawing that I see in the photo.

Regarding the angle of her face: the features on the left half of her face are generally pulled out to the left and down relative to how they appear in the photo. You've warped the face a bit to make it more of a frontal view. The left eye and the left corner of the mouth need to go up and inwards to properly capture the turn of her head. Note that moving the corner of the mouth will make a little more space between the chin and the mouth on that side, which is definitely needed.

Hope this helps!

I've made some of the modifications that were suggested. The drawing looks much better. The work is still in progress.

Gilbert




Thank you for the pointers. I'll make the updates, and see if there is some improvement.

I thought maybe by posting this, someone else can see the things I'm overlooking. When I get couped in my little world. Things just morph into what they want to turn out to be. Typically, what I do is put the drawing in a location that is about 10' away to look to see what is out of place or what I can do to make it look better. This seems to help too. In this case, I'm trying to do a little better with the advice of my fellow artist, maybe the outcome will turnout much better.


Cheers,
Gilbert

Apart from two 15-20 minutes sketches of Inca indians, this is my first charcoal portrait that took about an hour to complete. I am pleased with the likeness but i don't know whether to blend or not.I guess there is a difference between the two versions and seek your opinion.

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My PERSONEL PREFERENCE is the pic that has been blended or smoothed. I stress though that this a personel preference. Nice work either way.

Elana, I don't really understand artwork that is not photo realistic (but that is my problem), so I always blend. If you have not sprayed this, just for fun, you may want to spend another 3 or 4 hours on it and see how realistic you can make it. If you used vine or willow charcoal, you can lift almost to white with your kneaded eraser and archive a very wide array of values. Experiment with different tools such as stumps, hard erasers, qtips, tooth picks, micro fiber cloth etc to achieve different textures. Don't be afraid to spend some time on a piece, there is no price for first one done.

airscapes, your advice sounds great, only that i am for the spontaneous, not meticulous job especially in charcoal. I love charcoal mostly for being quick and efficient.
I used charcoal pencils soft and medium on Strathmore pad 9x11in. and the main purpose was to capture an expression-face as quick and accurate as possible.Photo realism is probably for the patient one or mature artist and i don't fit in any of the above.Maybe one day i will spend 4 hours on a portrait.Thanks so much for your time.

Editing here, as i am reading that photorealism is an American phenomenon/genre in painting 1960/70/90(wikipedia);in this sense should we deny other genres of art on grounds they don't fit in this category?Just wondering.

**** NO!
As I said.. Me personally, I don't get "Art" so the realistic style is what I am drawn to and understand. And yes, if you are not obsessive about details this type of drawing/painting would make you crazy!

Thank God.I am already on the neurotic side besides I draw between writing verse, so good to know i can take it slowly.I don't need more aggravation with photorealistic detail.

I like the first version most, which is not blended or smudged as much. I admire spontainious works, but I prefer to do the detailed works. But even with my detailed drawings I try to let some sketchy spontainousness show through. This is just my personal taste, but I don't like a lot of smudging. This don't make it right or wrong. In my opinion it is simply a matter of individual taste.

Bobby

Thanks, Bobby.I also think that the first version shows how far i can take charcoal at this stage.
There are a couple of e-books on charcoal that i can read as this medium is of great interest to me mostly for its versatility.Maybe with time and experience i will stay more with a piece to perfect it. Right now I am like a baby trying to walk on his own.

Finished (I think) portrait of my nephew. Took about 8-10 hours. About 8x10 done with 4H-5B graphite.

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Beautiful work! I wouldn't change a thing!

I agree with Cindy the thumb is backwards

Good job its beautiful.I do admire your work.Keep it going that way.You have a gift from God.

Hi Mechtonia,

Your drawing is very well done.

If it is not too late, I would consider spending a few more hours on it. In particular work on the hair and the clothing.
You may want to add a few more layers of graphite in the hair. It looks a little straw like. Try to get some shadowing and shading around the larger clumps of hair to give it more depth and better connect the fly away hairs.
The clothing seems unfinished. Try applying some more layering. You have a great start on the folds. The collar is taking away from the realism of the drawing.
It looks like you used a stump or tissue to blend the face. This is fine, I would just consider going over it once or twice with a 4H or 6H graphite to bring out some of the detail lost to the blending. Then again it just may be a result of the scanning or photo that gives me the impression that the detail was lost.

Again, nice drawing and I hope you find some use in this feedback.

Hi everyone!

This is an older portrait, made when I was a little younger
Please comment, I would be thankful.

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I was afraid to go over the hair any more....babies don't have much hair...if you draw too many stands/locks its starts to look freaky. The scan does make the clothing look "rough" compared to the skin but you are right in that the clothes are not as realistic as the face. Thanks for the feedback.

New here. First post.

Been doing other stuff (Abstract and Lowbrow) for a while, but I got me a hankerin for portraiture.

I have a work in progress here and I could use some help. This is my third piece and I think I'm at that point where it's starting to leave her likeness and heading towards my brain's understanding of her likeness. Which doesn't seem to work.

Thanx.

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