Drawings for 14 July, 2020

I missed drawing on Monday as well, though that was less about laziness and more about a really weird schedule.

But I already knew what I wanted to draw on Monday, so I did two drawings today: what I’d planned for Monday, and what I found today.

Monday’s drawing was a face, because I was feeling up for a challenge. There was this amazing monochrome portrait on the Flickr explore page:

Darwin, Australia

And this is how I copied it:

20200714a

The proportions are a little off – and I’m especially exasperated about the lips, though I think that is a problem of shading more than proportion. But as usual, I seem to do worse with the area between the nose and mouth, and better with the eyes. I think these are my best eyes since I started.

I think this leaves the subject looking much younger than in the photo – I tried to get the crows-feet around the eyes, but I think there’s an impact of the white hair in the photo that I can’t duplicate at my current level of skill.

I’ve now been trying a 2B pencil to do areas which are completely shadowed, and I’m not sure it’s working that well. But I don’t even know if the solution is to go back to HB or to pick an even blacker pencil.

Next up, a quick sketch for Tuesday. I tried to draw a photo of a castle through an arched gate, but got it badly wrong right at the beginning. And I was in a rush to shower and start the day, so rather than spend an unpredictable amount of time getting it right, I decided to do an easier photo, and found this:

Utrecht Centraal 2020

Ooh, this had to be simple, right? Just draw a curve and then draw parallel lines? Well… see for yourself:

20200714b

I did the curve, I did the parallel lines (with a ruler, at that), but I didn’t get the parallel shadows on the blinds exactly right. I winged it on the shadow the window frames/ structures were casting, though, and I’m pretty happy with that.

I left the man in as simple straight lines as possible instead of trying to get into the details of the face. I feel it’s better this way.

But it’s fascinating to practice these sorts of regular and repeating things; and see and draw for myself how things get stretched out or twisted closer and further away from the camera.

(Ignore the 12/7 in the corner, I wrote the date wrong for some reason.)

 

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