If you are serious about your drawing and if you feel that what you have created is on the very limits of your skills, and need honest opinions on where you seem to be lacking and how to further improve - this is the place for you.

If you are only drawing for fun and feel like you just have accomplished something "above" your skills, this is not the place for getting encouragement. You will most likely get feedback on those things that are lacking.
Instead, you will get the most out of this section when you are honestly not completely happy with what you have achieved, and strive to go one step further.

The people giving critique here are often very experienced themselves and could have professional careers in art, so please have in mind that these people will give you their honest opinions about the art. There is rarely any point for you in explaining that you are just a beginner in some area - the critique is given on the art, not you.

Don't look for 'it's beautiful' every time, because again, it's about the art, not you. Nothing needs to be taken personally.

If you just want to show off your latest drawings that you are quite happy with to all the friends at Drawspace and get their opinions, do so in the "General" section.

Give us a hint as to what you are trying to achieve with your drawing? Is it surreal? Realistic? Cartoon? Without guidance, critiques will be given on the assumption that you are aiming for a realistic interpretation.

[ The previous Official Critique Thread had gotten rather long. It's still available here.

Hi,

I'm back for advice. I can't see anything more for the ducks. Maybe you can. For the water, I want to give an effect that supports the ducks, without taking over. I don't like the effect in the picture. Some say what I've done is not interesting, I think I like it. I would like to have other advice. I wish I had asked before. Some things might be hard to change...

Thanks for your help

Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment

I like the fuzziness of the ducklings; you captured their spiky feathers well. I understand how you included a kind of "track" in the water so wavelets close to the ducks would not distract from them. But the rest of the water looks very soft and weak, and I think that detracts from the impact of the image. I think you should read Jeanette's lesson on water to get some ideas for punching it up. I think that there are other places where the contrast could be ramped up to give more energy to the piece: for example, the dark spots between feathers on the duckling's chests could be much darker, and the area where each duck eclipses the one behind could use a little shadow; you can see evidence of those shadows in the photo, but not in the drawing.

Humpf! I had read the lesson....

But I think I understand what you mean. I'll give it another try. Do you get the feeling that the water movements look credible? Could I only work on making them sharper? I'll also work on the shadows. I tried solarizing both images and saw areas that could be improved.

Other comment are always more than welcome until I finish the piece.

I think they do look like waves; they just have very low contrast which makes them look soft and fluffy, like the ducks are swimming in a tub of Marshmallow Fluff rather than water. Yes, I think what it needs is just more contrast.

Hi Nathalie

I think the ducks are very cute

I'd say push the values on the ducks, suppress the values on the water, as you've done, and keep the water soft-focus. One thing I'd change though, is that water reads as water because the wave-shapes are horizontal/near-horizontal, and you've gone away from that.

Dave

Well, well, now I've got an opposite idea! Exactly what's happening at home! I guess it's black or white !

I agree with the orientation of the waves, and pushing some darkness on the ducks even though what I have achieved on their head is the maximum I can get.

For the darkness of the waves I'll let it soak for a while.

Anyone else to conclude the tie break ?

Yes, sorry (its like a psychiatrists' convention, every one's got a different diagnosis ) Well, the first thing would be to sort out the waves as more horizontal, as we all seem to agree on that? If you went for low-contrast first, and keep the values high, if you feel it doesn't work you could then increase the contrast by pushing the darks in the water? Would some photoshoppery on the ref-image be any help?

Here's the third psychiatrist's 2 cents worth.

Nathalie, I think your duck values are spot on. Excellent job of drawing these little guys. What may be causing the confusion is the water values.

Yes you can choose to let it remain diffused and recede to the background or you can bring it forward by adding darker values to it. The choice is yours. Whichever way you do it, you need to ensure that you remain true to reality in how water moves and reflects light.

There is a halo of light around the base of the ducks where they sit on the water which doesn't ring true to my eye. Shadows and the play of light/dark on water goes up against the ducks. The light ring makes them look as if they are not in the water but on top of something else.

Look carefully at the shapes that the light and shade make in the water and draw them accordingly. Think of it as an abstract drawing, not as water. Take a section at a time, work your values and you'll do great.

Horizontal = agreed
Low contrast first = agreed
Values high = I'll keep them low at first not to ruin the paper
And I'm not good with photoshop. However, I plan on scanning my drawing to try different things.

Thanks

Haaaaa! The master of the waves has responded

The ducks thank you

And you're right about the halo. My kids said the same thing. I thought it was cool, but I guess it's mostly weird. I will remove it and make the wave quasi-horizontal. Not sure about the values yet.

Thanks for the help

By high values, I mean light, and by low, I mean dark. (I think in terms of Munsell notation. N0=black, 0% reflectance. N10=white, 100% reflectance).

I was offering to do the photoshoppery for you, if you'd like

I love your ducks also I tried that picture lol and did not do well ...so it is a very challenging photo to draw ....I thought it looked like snow they were in ...they seemed to sink into the water and not lay on top ....following jeanettes advice would improve the drawing even more so good luck and please post your progress if you choose to make the changes .

can't the little ducks take a bubble bath??
I think the ducks are beautiful!!! as for advice I woulnd't know how to help but it seems the masters are already helping you
good luck.

I would never have asked, but I've seen what you can do.... I would really appreciate your help with photoshop.

And you ave absolutely right about the values. I should know I'm an optics engineer ...

Clara and Kim!

Maybe we should think of it as a snowy foam bath???
Hey if I'm not worth a laugh, I'm worth nothing!

good humour is awsome ....trust me no one is laughing at your work .. I know as I saisd I tried this pic and did not do well at all ..yours is outstanding compared to me hun .so I am no one to laugh

Kim,

don't misunderstand me, "I" was laughing at myself, and having fun.

And thanks for the info everyone. I will not get anything new for a while since I'm going for 4 days, where theres no phone, no TV, no electricity, but a lot of trees and good company . After that it's a 4 days week and we have to pack in 5 days of work. So please, be patient, I will rework on it....one day

Happy to try to help - here are light and dark versions of the background behind the ducklings, with and without blurring:

Click to view attachment



Dave

Thanks Dave,

it helps seeing it. I think the duck in the upper left look fluffier, and those in the lower right look lighter. Right now, my taste leans toward the fluffy look. But it might change until I finally find time to work on it.

Hello there,

I started this project of drawing in CP unripe quinces from real life.
I didn't do a previous sketch or a values map but directly proceeded into drawing in Cp.
I have this set of 72 colors for $10 called Rose Art, they are not the quality of derwents or prismacolor but they do the job.I used 4 shades of yellow, 2 flesh tones, 3 greens, bronze,olive, khaki, sienna,umber, grey, browns and black only for quinces.

After 2 hours of uninterrupted work here I am with my project that I noticed is just in its early stage.
I want to give more volume by shading more certain areas but the paper which is Strathmore drawing pad medium would not take more color it's already shiny and slippery.
What do you suggest?
Click to view attachment

I will also add a picture of these quinces to get an idea of their color, but my drawing was done from real life.

Click to view attachment

First off .....the pencils make a world of difference .. rose art is a very low grade colored pencil ...and I feel this is why your having a problem ....prisma or other higher quality colored pencil will allow you to layer and I found from Jeanettes class that layering is very important and what eles I learned was when coloring something red .. I could also use purple and other unlike colors to get the true color of what it was i was drawing ...so if you are serious about your art then i would invest in some high quality pencils ...you have the shapes down and the shading but the blending is most important ..at least for me ....too much wax and not enough pigment in the rose art ....

Very true, Kim that wax and not proper blending are the drawbacks of Rose art CP. But as a beginner I was thinking of practicing with something other than Crayola. I have a Caran d'Ache 32 color set which i can use dry(they are WP actually) but this time I just wanted to experiment with this 72 color set.I am new to CP and to drawing in general. I have only a few CP drawings in my gallery not more than 8-10.
Here is a new attempt of adding pine green, cloud grey, mahagony. You can see the poor blending. But this is now all I can do to this drawing.

I want to add that also the paper is very important. My favorite for CP is Stonehenge and I will order more from DICK.BLICK art materials as i cannot find it in my neighborhood.

I'd agree with Kim's advice here Elena. But technique is also the culprit here too in layering as well as your materials. If you use hard pressure, you will apply more wax/pigment onto your paper and fill the tooth of the paper too early, being unable, as you now see, to add more layers of colour.

CP work isn't difficult, but it is time consuming. I know you say you're not patience, but patience really is the key in coloured pencil work. Its a slow process of careful layering using the right tools.

But don't despair, knowing what you now know, you can start over on a fresh piece of paper and take your time. I"m only a question away if you need guidance.

Thank you, jeanette. My question is what do you say of what i just did?About layering. This drawing has more than 15 layers and no pressure for sure.

Elena, if you have that many layers down, you'd likely reach saturation point with any paper surface. Pressure is relative to what you are familiar with I guess.

What kind of stroke are you using? I used a small circular, scumbling stroke that give a very even coverage on the surface, then I build from there. I can see lines in your piece which perhaps is where you hurried a little to fill in the colour. Its difficult then to eliminate those lines.

I'd like to see you do something similar with your Caran d'Ache pencils and see if they'll give you better control over layering. Also, you could try a different paper too. Stonehenge is good and I use it a lot for CP. It is soft and some colours seem to 'disappear' in it, needed reapplying to get the hue you want. Bristol paper can work if you don't have a heavy hand with layers.

I'd try one of your quinces to show how I build a cp drawing, but I'll be away for a few days starting tomorrow and don't know if I'll be able to have much time to do that. You're moving into the right colour values for this with your additional layers, but of course it depends on what you want to achieve in the end - a representational rendering of quinces or something more loose.

Thank you, Jeanette. It's true that the Roseart pencils leave lines and are poor quality so i will switch to see where is actually the problem. I also did circles but only for the quinces.The background was done by crisscross hatching.
You don't have to bother doing my quinces.Unless you like them that much.Not only that you are an art teacher but you have 30 years experience and I have a few months so my results will not be for a art piece at this time.I only need to understand whether what i am doing is the right thing for now.
So take care and enjoy your trip.

Jeanette gives great advice ...u think once you change your pencils you will notice a difference in the quality of the drawing ...I mean look what you have done with the pencils you have ? this looks pretty good for roseart pencils .....yes Jeanette has alot of years behind her with her education and skill but it does help to see how another builds their layers .. she had a class on colored pencil that was out of this world ...myself I am very good with color pencil but in this class I learned even more about layering and how hard to press .. paper ect. With a little help you will be a master of CP

Hey, Kim you make me wish I was 25 again. What a nice compliment!
I had an even harder time to do them in watercolor a medium that i just started but possibly this builds my character and endurance as I have to fight with my arthritic hands this fight with different media.
The only medium that i can try now is oil pastels and by then I will do them in my sleep
Thanks again.

OK. Here I am with my second CP project from real life, this time three persimmons(All good things come in three).
I used Caran d'Ache on Canson mi teintes pad 9x11 in.I worked on it on and off.I had a study in graphite also.THis time I can still do more layers as the paper is not saturated but I just wanted some feedback first.C&C welcome.

Hello again. I have try to post my latest work two times already and I can't see it, this is the last time.
Anyways, done with prismacolors on canson classic cream drawing paper. Took about 15hrs or so. I believe the leaves look better than the rose.
I saw this image of Igor Levashov, and I try to get thesame results on color pencils.

After seeing all the other incredible work on this thread, I am very hesistant to post a picture for comments or help. But you can't learn to swim until you jump in the water so here goes...

I don't know how long this took, since I work in bits and pieces of time when I can. I like this picture for the most part, but there's just something "not right" about it in my opinion. Elena posted the photo and I took a shot at drawing it. Where can I improve and make the squirrel look more squirrelly?
Click to view attachment

Sorry for the late responses to this thread folks, life takes over sometimes!

Guzman, the rose is very well rendered. Your values and drawing are spot on.Yes the leaves are a bit more modeled than the flowerhead, but you can correct that by bumping up your values in the rose petals to give them more structure and definition. The thing that distracts my eye is the background however. Its a bit lively and tends to take away from the central piece. Of course it depends on what you had in mind as to what you wanted to create, but the abstract background and the realistic drawing just seem to clash for me as a viewer.

ncgirl, critiques are always useful, even if they are a bit scary for the artist sometimes. Just remember that its the technical aspects of the drawing only that are being talked about, its not personal.

I think you have some really good elements in this drawing, and the making of a great piece. I haven't seen the reference, so it becomes a little more difficult to comment, but what I see are hard lines here outlining the squirrel's body, face and the tree. Value changes are what create shape in drawings. In life there are no hard lines. Observation is a key element and drawing just what you see, not what your mind's memory tells you it should be.

Photo quality is crucial in getting a good likeness and detail in a drawing. I haven't seen the specific reference, can you post it here? And are you trying for a realism piece or a looser drawing?

And my persimmons?

Actually I got the photo from Elena, it's on the bear drawing invitation. I'll see if I can copy and paste. Be back in a few!

Here is the picture

Thanks Elena! I've tried three times to cut and paste and at least three to post this reply. Either I don't know what I'm doing or my computer is possessed by the devil. Jeanette, see Elena's squirrel picture, this is what I based my drawing on. I'll be back, need to contact IT department (and the local minister).

Ok, my computer seems to have worked through its issues, so I can safely reply. Jeannette, thanks for the critique, I do love the lines in all my drawings. Old habits die hard, y'know. I read a book recently that discussed using value changes instead of lines to define shapes and mass. I was going to try it with the squirrel, but instead am working on a portrait of one of my cats and trying this method. It gives a more realistic look (at least it did in the book - we'll see how mine actually turns out). I was pleased with the randomness of the squirrel's tail - not too hard to achieve though, since I was working on it while riding with my boss on the 440 beltline at about 80 mph (don't try this at home kids!)

To answer your question about whether I was trying for realism vs. looser drawing, I'm not sure. Since I missed the realism, can I say I was trying for the looser drawing?

Thanks again for the critique, as soon as I get the cat portrait done, I'll post it and we'll see how I did.

P.S. Don't apologize for the wait, from your other posts you seem to be very busy!

Elena, sorry I missed your persimmons. I'll give you some comments later today, as I'm up to my ears in work right now. A similar question can be asked to you as well. What are you trying to achieve with your drawing? Realism or impression? You have a bit of both going on in this drawing right now. Anyway, more later!

Thanks for posting the squirrel image too. Its really useful to post the reference you're using so others can determine how you're progressing.

What I am trying to render are persimmons, believable fruit that can be associated with the name of persimmons.As I drew from life I guess I intended realism.I don't quite understand what you mean by impression.Impression is the way i see things or impressionism an art trend?If so point out for me please which elements are in your opinion impressionist and why.

When it comes to impressions, we all draw our impressions of things and not THE thing.
Look in the challenges. You can see a photo of a camel and 7 interpretations(impressions) of it.None of it is identical with the photograph, not to mention the real life camel.

Elena, I meant impressionism. It was a typing error on my behalf.

Now for your persimmons. I think you've done really well with achieving even layers of pigment on your paper. Your values are good too. Its a difficult thing to do to create that overall value using even pressure with your pencil. However, I feel that this piece is not complete yet.

My comment would be about the distinct bands of colour that indicate changes in colour. To create realism you would need to soften these colours so that they blend into each other. As well you could introduce other colours into the fruit. These are smooth, shiny fruit and your drawing needs to indicate that. Use complementary colours such as blue in the shadows, reds and purples in the darker values of the fruit too. Also the leaves on top of the fruit appear flat to me. You need to model them more introducing more colours to make them appear more leaf-like.

The background and grounding shadows of the fruit can also be pushed up a few notches to add different values and interest with additional colours. Here is a link to a coloured pencil drawing that I did a couple of years ago of persimmons so you can see the smooth change of colours in the fruit and the beginnings of modelling of the background and shadows.

Thank you Jeanette. I had the same feeling that it wasn't finished. As a matter of fact i stopped there because i didn't know what to do next. I will look at the link and continue adding shading.

Jeanette, I visited the link you provided and looked at your persimmons and I don't know if you used pictures or real life fruit but here is my reference in a different pose which i took to remember later the real colors of the fruit.They are unripe and i guess i made them blush more in my drawing but for realism i should have had more pale faded colors. See also the hues of the stems.

Hi,
for my "learn how to color" quest, I tried out a new program that allows me to recreate with the graphic tablet the effects of charcoal (it also reproduces the effects of different kind of paper).
I started with the classical apple on a table thing, that's the rough result.
Since it's not real charcoal I don't expect real tips about the mean itself, but I could use some comments about colors values and such.
Mainly I can't figure out why the bottom of the apple, the edge that stands directly over the shadow, does not seem realistic.
Any help regarding what works and what doesn't, it's much appreciated.

Thank you very much

Yes, Elena, those are different in colour where mine were quite bright orange/red and these are very pale with almost a bloom on them too.

Of course you can use whatever colour you want in your drawing, but the same principles apply to smooth transitions in shading and making sure your lighting is portrayed accurately. Also look at the shape of these fruits, they aren't spherical, they're more flattened, so make sure that your drawing of them is accurate before you start adding colour.

The leaves in this are almost a sage green with pale blue and purple overtones - even some yellows. There's still lots of room for modeling and showing the shapes of little folds in the leaves and how the shadow of them separates them from the fruit.

I'd love to see you start another, just take one of these fruits and see how accurately you can place the colours on them.

IlMostro, did you draw this using a real apple as a reference or was this done from imagination? If it was the latter, that could be your problem as you may not have all the information that you need to draw the fruit's values and colours. Also I presume you meant pastel, not charcoal, as its in colour, even if they have similar qualities.

The bottom of the apple looks ok to me. Objects resting on a surface also reflect some of the surface they sit on even in the shadowed area. So on the shadowed side you would see a small area of reflected light on the edge of the fruit.

I'd be more concerned about the top of the apple right now. There is a sort of line down the middle that makes it look as if there is almost a cleft in the middle of the apple and I don't think that should be there.

You can deepen the shadows in the apple and add more colour to give it depth. Also the shadows at the base are correct, but need smoothing if you're looking for a more accurate representation.

I'm also not really clear on the light source for this. I'm presuming its from the top. If so, the skin would reflect bright highlights where the light hits the top of the apple.

This might help, Sphere Demo.

Mmmh... the line in the middle is part of the apple color, not actually a cleft, that's why I didn't shadow it.
There are a series of red lines on it, but I thought that the way I drew them it could look ambiguous.

On the top there is a mistake that I made, but in the end I thought it looked nice... apparently it gives away the reality of the portrait.
The light in reality is not at all that strong, in the sense that it does not shine... the light comes from the top but is diffuse, not like a spotlight; so I shouldn't have put that light shade.
I'll try to take it away and see what happens.

About the reference, I just put a real apple next to my laptop... tomorrow I'll try to take a picture with the same light to give you an idea.
Sorry for the mistake about the charcoal, but even if in nature charcoal is just black, with the pc I can use all the colors... I didn't think of that.
In the end the effect is like pastels

I'll work on everything and see what comes out, thanks

hi there i need some critique, i only started drwaing 3months ago, this took me 3 hours

Regards Nicolaas

Great work with the lesson! You have the patience needed to advance with graphite.
I went to check what your other work was like and you had nothing in your gallery???