I’ve been thinking a lot about this project. My thoughts are still not clear so bear with me. Btw, I appreciate all the feedback you’ve been leaving so please don’t interpret my silence as lack of appreciation. I go back and forth between my ideas. Part of me wants to just draw and not paint so I can focus on one thing at a time. Draw more with shading and charcoal for the whole thing. Then focus on painting once I’m really good at the drawing, shading, etc. Part of me likes the painting and doesn’t want t give it up. Part of me wants to draw these, more idealized, faces and part of me wants to make them more emotional, more real, more artistic. I am pretty lost. I will give it a solid think and then decide.
Actually I’m thinking I will move to just drawing them. What do you think? I feel like if I can draw them really really well with lots of great shading and blacks and whites and everything in between, then I can worry about the painting afterwards. First, I can learn to add emotion. I can learn to change expressions. Really really focus on the portraits. And then worry about the painting as phase two.
So with that here are my last set of six painted portraits for a while.
Here they are, painted:
and then here is the next three drawings:
and painted.
Let’s see how the drawing works out.. I make no promisses. I might come back to this. Or even do a different version. Who knows….
Six Portraits a Week is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.
adore the last painting with the pig tails and seems the most real to me so far, for some reason. wow, i see such promise in that piece of art. actually, i love it. the technique you did with the bangs, the shape of her jaw, her neck seems to fit, the eyes are so realistic, the shading and skin tone are lovely and the color you used for the nose detail is more authentic.
having said that, i was going to say just stick with the drawing until you feel you’ve mastered that, but after seeing this last painting, i don’t know…
i’ve switched to drawing. it’s been a slow week but i am already happier. i like making the faces, i want to experiment more and play around more. let’s see..
I haven’t commented until now mostly b/c I’m not an artist (AT ALL) so I don’t have the knowledge to offer criticism. But your post today mentioned something non-artsy and that I can comment on! You like the painting part (I’m guessing more than the drawing). I say keep painting b/c that’s the part of the process that gives you joy. You can add emotion and expression with the paint, and it doesn’t have to be an afterthought. It’s part of the shadowing that the colors can provide. I commend your stick-to-itivness! I truly admire you for it.
i actually like the drawing part more š it’s the part i really want to improve. i still plan to paint too. i am thinking something like six months to really improve the drawing and then add paint? not sure…
I love the last one with the piggy tails. And I think they start to look happier. But who am I to comment, I cannot paint at all, LOL. Love your drawings.
lol knowing how to do something and having taste to judge are two different things š thank you for your opinion, it’s valuable to me!
These are good! My favorite is the redhead (4).
I have been following for a long time now and am amazed at your progress with these faces. I think that last one is really right on. I look at her and think “Do I know her?”. So much better with the paint.
š thank you. that one was from a picture š
Wow the one with pigtails is excellent
I know NOTHING about painting or drawing. I enjoy your drawings. In the posting today, I too like the one with the pigtails but my favorite is the middle one of the second set. There was emotion and life in this one but it seemed to be lost for me when painted.
thank you! yes paint is its own medium and so is charcoal. which is why i decided to separate the two and handle one at a time.