hi paulette4, thanks with the great response, most of my work is at the back of my door in my "studio", i will take them off and scan them in
thanks again

Hello Nicolas,

May I ask what you are using for paper? It appears that the dark values in the pupils are not what you were looking for and I think that maybe the paper has something to do with it.

Me again! Here's a sketch based on a photo of my cat Hodgepodge. I took Jeanette's advice from last submission (squirrel) and avoided hard lines as much as possible. This is my first time using blending with tortillions with any success. I've aimed for realism in this sketch. Can't quite remember total time, I would guess at a couple of hours. I apologize for the quality of the scanned sketch, it isn't the best. Feedback is requested, how can I make Hodgepodge better? Thanks in advance!
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Oh ncgirl, I am no critic but I think you have done a great job on Hodgepodge, very nice !!!!

Hi Ncgirl,

Your cat is fantastic the structure is very good,perhaps you need to concentrate on the tonal values,if you include darker tones you will start to improve the form,remember there is lighting,texture,reflections from the eyes etc,all of this information can be captured and enhanced with tonal values and contrast.

There are other techniques that you can use to convey the message and increase emotional content,but as you have masterd the structure, your next step would be to push the values.If you look at the ear on the left hand side,to create depth you would require a darker shadow behind the ear.The shadow will force the ear out of the page,the darker areas would recede into the drawing plane.thus creating a more three dimensional structure.

The eyes the brain and the intellect are all connected,and the eye loves visual contrast,imagine your eyes moving across the drawing,looking for areas that keep it constantly involved.create those pockets of visual excitement and you will have a memorable drawing.

Dont concern yourself with the time it took to complete the drawing,rather focus on the basic elements of drawing,understand and improve your technique. Speed drawing is a particular exercise that you use to develope your observational skills,if a drawing takes two years to complete,so be it.

Well done, great work, enjoy , have fun regards Wayneo

hi twakkie,well done for three months of drawing,i look forward to seeing some of your other work on the site.

Hoe gaan dinge in die stad van Pretoria,ek is van Johannesburg af
veels geluuk Wayneo

Hi rjblanchette, i think its the pencils that i use, i went to dark with my values, so im using an harder graphite lyra Art Design, can u recomend a pencil? what do you think of the faber castell 9000 series?

Thanks Wayneo, lekker om iemand van sa hier te kry, bly in kontak, ek het op joun profile gaan kyk, Hectic

I'm impressed by the work of NCGirl, and greatly appreciated the comments of Wayneo. I've copied these into my notebook. I'm sure the drawing of NCGirl is still better in reality. She really captured the structure of the head and expressed very well the eyes anf fur.
(My great problem is to draw with too strong lines. I have to learn to take times, as Wayneo said)
Thank you both.
An

You will be well served wth the Faber Castel 9000 series. My personal take on dark values is that you can never go dark enough. I felt that the pupils lacked that darker value and it was because the tooth of the paper was not accepting the graphite very well.

NancyB and An - thank you so much for your kind comments on my drawing - it keeps a very non-confident and amateur artist going! I hope I can continue to progress and reach the levels of talent that I see on this site.

Wayneo - thanks for the advice on strengthening my tones and values. I'm looking for another photo to try this out on. I'll try to make it something besides cats, but no promises!

Just wanted to try to copy this photo I took on holiday. They look so improbable beside each other. Let me know what you think?

I just had to say I love the photo of these two together and your drawing of the two friends! Wonderful!

Is this ok? This is my first try at realism.

The proportions are good. For the next one, try not to think so much in terms of the outlines of things, and more in terms of patterns of light and dark -- i.e., the face is a different color than the background, so it should be a different value (darkness) in the drawing, and in between the face and the background there should not be an outline.

Thanks! i was really worried about the proportions. I will think about the patterns of light and dark more carefully next time!

See my friend I told you this was a good place for feedback.

I would suggest that you have a look at layering the graphite. Stay away from stumps or other types of blending tools for the time being. You need to be able to layer the graphite with hatching and cross hatching to get a good range of values. Once you are happy with that you can go over it lightly with a blending tool or tissue to smooth it out a bit. Just remember to be delicate when blending and use it sparingly it will only take away from the detail of the drawing.

Ok next time i'll practice crosshatching and hatching before i start to draw. Do you know where i can get a pack of graphite pencils? i only have a normal pencil and a mechanical pencil right now and i think if i have other types of pencils my drawings will look better.

A friend asked me to draw this dog for her. What do you think? Coloured pencil on Mi-Tientes paper.

I think it looks wonderful Norma.
The only thing would be to get a bit more light and dark to make it pop off the page.

Thanks Paulette. I'll see what I can do.

Hi, everyone. This is my second portrait. It's of one of my favorite Korean singers LeeTeuk from Super Junior and the sub-groups of Super Junior T and Happy. I'm very happy with this in real life, but on the computer it doesn't look so good..
The ref. picture I printed out was blurry and part of his head was cut off, so I had to do as best as I could, not having constant access to the reference. There were 2 things that I made different on purpose: The vest and the hair. I worked on getting rid of outlines this time, and next portrait (Which'll be coming up soon, I'm drawing portraits for my close friends' Christmas presents), I won't be afraid to go darker (:

What do you think?

Hi Kwon,
I think you have done really well.
You have captured the Asian eyes, which is not always easy and the hair looks fantastic.

If you want the hair to read dark or red you will have to darken alot.

You have done very well with the shading.


I think you have caught a likeness, but to be a true likeness you will want to watch your measurements and shapes.
For example, this person has a heart shaped face and you have given him an rectangular shape.
His nose also flairs out, where yours is straight.
You should find it helpful to drop lines from key features.
For example from the center of the eye to the edge of the lips, from the inner edge of the eye to the nostril, from the nose across to the earlobe.

You have done great, just don't be afraid to pump up those values to get your subject to pop off the page.

Please critique. These are portraits that I am working on as gifts for these childrens Grandparents.
8x10 2H - 4B Strathmore bristol.
They didn't scan well and have a blue tint to them.
Suggestions for better scanner settings would also be appreciated.

Thanks,
Sean

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Hi Sean,

You've done quite a good job on these portraits. Its a little difficult to comment as I haven't seen the reference for the drawings, so in terms of likeness I can only presume you've got it.

The things that I pick up on in this are some hard lines that could be softened. The outline of the boys face for instance and in the girls hair band and hair as well as the dress. The eyes have similar lining around them and the lines radiating from the pupil aren't really like that in reality. They would be muted and soft, not distinct lines.

The eyelashes too look harsh and not as natural as they could be. If you study how eyelashes grow and the direction they take, you can make them more believable.

Thanks Jeanette,

Your imput is great. I'll work on softening those lines. I've always had difficulties with eyelashes and am working to improve in that area.
I'll be sure to scan and include my reference photos next time.

Again, Thank you!

Sean

Thanks, Paulette (: I'll definitely put your advice to work in my next portrait! His hair is much darker on the real thing, I'm not quite sure why it's so light here..And, I was worried 'bout the face shape and nose, they were bothering me, but I couldn't quite place what was wrong with it, hehe

I know this is a painting, not a drawing, but I need advice on what to change. It's of me painting my brother. I'm not sure about:
my arm and my hand- are they out of proportion?
my shoulders and my brother's shoulders- too narrow? too wide?
my mouth- it looks strange...

And of course, anything else you see that could help to improve it.

Thanks.

EDIT: by the way, the photo cut off part of the right side of the painting, including the necklace I'm wearing.

Hey PPW, it's so nice to see you again!

The girl's face is exquisite; I don't see anything weird about the mouth at all.

I think the length of the arm is about right. The wrist looks awfully thick to me for a young girl.

The boy's shoulders do look somewhat narrow.

Thanks. I'll change the wrist and the shoulders.

Hi,

I'm fairly new here - I don't believe I've ever posted in the forum, but I have gone through some of the beginner's lessons, and found them useful.

This picture is something I've taken a bit of time over, I've never spent quite so long on a picture before, or tried so hard to get it right. I think this is about as good a picture as I have in me until I get some more practise in!

I have done scrawly sketches before, but my goal is to be able to really draw - to capture what I see with a pencil in great detail - and of course to make people say "wow!". I realise I'm a distance away from that stage at this point, but I'd appreciate it if some of the better artists could let me know how what I need to do better with this picture:



I have already picked up on a couple of things just as I was grabbing it from the camera and uploading it:

• Make sure to shade the entire background, rather than just a small border?
• And also - I seem to have lost patience with the feathers, I was trying to concentrate on the face, but the feathers now seem to let it down somewhat.. I didn't know how to translate all that detail that I can see clearly, into approximate pencil marks without letting the drawing down, if that makes sense?

Please don't be too easy on me, I really need the full force of your criticism! :-)

Thank you,
Craig

I like it, the looseness of it can be nice; you noticed right, an even background will complete the picture.
Welcome to Drawspace, Craig. happy holidays!

Thanks for your comments.

I can't figure this message board out, I am trying to link to the original image on Flickr and the board seems to be deleting my post.. Anyway - a search on flickr with the terms: "What You Lookin' At? rooster" shows the image I'm trying to work from.

I may try and start the image from scratch and try to improve the feathers and the background, or I may just go back and fill in the background on the original.

Cheers,
Craig

Hi Craig,
1st - Until you are a regular poster you can not post links. (reasons of spam)

2nd- Unless you are the photographer, that artist has some rights reserved, you are free to share copy and transfer, but not to make derivative works of it. You can see the copyright info on the right hand side of the page under additional info. Very important info if you plan to get good enough to sell or give away or even blog about your work. Which by the way you can do(get good enough!)

Your shape looks good. The beak and eye look good.
The thing that will pull your drawing off of the page is shading, time and patience.
Think of shading as zones 1 is the white of the paper 10 is as black as you can get it. I can see white in the highlight of the birds eye and the glimmers of sun on the red parts. I see #2 and 3 on the beak and the white of the eye. On the other end of the scale I see black on the bottom half of the pupil and the deepest darkest regions on the feathers (where they are going in to meet the skin and are being shaded by the feathers above. I see #9 and 8's coming out from those feathers, some of the feathers themselves and maybe bits on the beak and the farthest right of the head red piece.
Look at the wattle(below the chin), you can see the darkest area of it between the beak and the eye about a #7 or 8 and the lightest part is the bit of highlight on the left edge, you should be able to see at least 3 or 4 other shades in between.

My suggestion to move forward would be to take this drawing forget about the texture and just add the values that you see the black and the shades of gray, you will be amazed at what happens to your drawing. Even with no finesse given it will pop the drawing off the page.

As far as texture goes, Brenda's squirkeling (sp?) would be a fast easy way to show the texture on the red.

For patience you will find that, as soon as it feels like work, walk away from it, the drawing will be there tomorrow or in a couple of hours. When you come back you will feel the excitement again.

You are well on your way to your goal, I'll be watching for more.

Hi Paulette,

Thanks very much for your help. About the copyright issue for this image I'm working on; I have read about the creative commons licenses before (and have been involved with open source software for a while), so I should know better! It somehow didn't connect in my head that drawing a photo could be a derivative work, or a copy of some kind. I guess I've already tried to draw the photo once so I'm carrying on until I get happy with it, unless you advise otherwise. I will make sure that if and when I get good enough and it starts to actually resemble the works I'm copying, I shall only copy images I'm allowed to! Thanks for the heads up.

I had another quick bash at the same image, I spent about half as long this time (1 hour instead of 2 hours), and somehow I've come up with something less detailed and looser (to use ElenaM's word), but the overall values do seem to match the originals more convinceingly.

I've thought about it a bit, and I think I'm actually not looking to make a photorealistic image, for large areas like the feathers, I want a "shorthand" way of making the feathers. I've seen other images, where the artist gestures towards a particular texture, or material, and I guess knowledge of this (how to pull it off) only comes with experience?



I am not sure whether I prefer this image or the other one, but this one passes the squint test better for me (i.e. squint and look at both images, do they resemble each other?).

Thanks,
Craig

This looks great Craig!
Your values on the whole could go up a couple of notches, but as you said they are all there.
Your right of course the more practice you get the easier it will be to suggest texture.
Photo realistic drawings tend to take 30 hrs or more.
Don't forget to start an album.

Hello all!

I'm hoping for some pointers and critique on a drawing I'm doing for a good friend. A few months ago, I was about a low as I could be and she came to my emotional and financial rescue, and has refused to accept a penny in pay back. So - when she sent me a photo of her old Cocker Spaniel in his Christmas costume, I had a bright idea - and started drawing. Charlie is about 12 years old and blind, but she says he is happy and otherwise healthy, so he remains at home.

Since this is a special gift for a special person, I want to do a very good job. I know squat about spaniels and less about aging spaniels, so any expert tips in that area are welcome. I did draw Charlie with seeing eyes, I just could not draw him blind. I also tried to give him a little more of a ruffly youthful appearance, and lost the leash and Christmas costume. Now - what can I do to make it better? I'm hesitant to go any further on my own - I'm scared I'll really screw up this drawing. Photo of Charlie is attached also. Be ruthless, I want to improve any way I can. Thanks in advance! P.S. I'm still working on the same cheap scanner as before - it looks a little better in reality.

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This looks really great and will be an excellent present for a wonderful person!
The only thing I see is that the chest area could be darkened.
Between the chin / beard areas and the chest. At the creases of the legs and just under the ear hairs (lowest point).
mostly just giving definition to the chest.
She is going to love it and will, I am sure treasure it more than money.

Thanks Paulette - I will do that this morning. I had actually toned the chest area darker, but lightened it with my eraser yesterday because I thought it was too dark. This is that funny stage I get to where I second-guess everything and usually go the wrong direction. I appreciate your insight, compliments and advice. Ok, a quick work with 4B pencil and I'll post again to see how I did. I really hope she likes it - it's a fun project.

One more time - Charlie II - critique please!Click to view attachment

Hello everyone! I am new here also and this is my first drawing in many years I can see I need some advice. So please givve it me straight and hold no bars

Thanks,
Rahn

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Looking much better since you took up Paulette's suggestions I'm sure you friend will love it! I wish my dog would sit for a camera - my avator is the only one I've got of her as she sees the camera and looks away, or disappears.

You've really got that cruel bird of prey look there. I' sure you enjoyed drawing again. Keep it up.

My cats do that too! My dog just rolls over on her back and hangs her tongue out. Most attractive. I have so many terrible pictures of my pets....

Thank you for the compliments - Paulette's suggestions really helped give the picture more punch!

Um...Hi. This is my first post on drawspace. I need some help to know what could be done better with this portrait. I am posting my first attempt at a portrait and the next try on it. I am learning on my own here, and you know how family will tell you everything looks good What can I do better here? I haven't had a tutorial on hair yet, but some pointers would be great. I am also posting the reference photo for comparison. I normally work in acrylics, but thought I needed to learn to draw. These are done on Canson 65lb sketch paper. Thanks in advance for your honest help!

Hi Jennie,

These actually look pretty good. The fact that you're an experienced painter shows: you're thinking in terms of areas of value rather than outlines (as beginning pencil artists often do.) This is a good thing!

Here is a fabulous hair tutorial. You're really already got the idea; you just need to go for more crispness and contrast and little or no blending in the hair area.

For eyelashes, check out Brenda's tutorial here. Pay attention to what she says about the distribution and direction of the lashes; they go every which way, and vary in length. They're much less uniform than you've drawn them here.

Otherwise, I'd say you're on th right track -- just practice, practice, practice!

NCgirl, sorry I disappeared on you.
This looks really great!
Have you given it to her yet?

Rahn, beautiful work! Nice and strong with minimal lines.
I can only see too things that my eye doesn't like.
The first is where the body of the bird blends into the paper, I like the blending in part but the lines that appear to go across the bird the wrong way from the feathers are going, distract me.
The second is the dark shadow line above the birds head could use blending in.
Hope that makes sense.
Can't wait to see more!

No problem! Your advice worked wonderfully! I did frame it up over the weekend, and gave it to my friend just a few minutes ago. She cried, then I had to cry too. Then a co-worker came over and she cried too. I think she likes it.

Thankyou paulette, for the critique. I took your advice and It does look alot better. I thin I need to work on doing feathers. every time I try it just turns out to be a mess, in my eyes.

Thanks again!

Rahn

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