*The post contains the stages of drawing a portrait from a photograph (with chalk and charcoal). Brace yourselves! You are about to have a good laugh : )
I never though I’d say it, but here it is: it is waaaaay better to draw from life than from photo. Better both in terms of easy and educational.
Here is the portrait I drew on this Saturday’s drawing course:
An elegant and somewhat dignified old man.
And here is a portrait (an errand) of a cute elderly couple, drawn form a photo:
And here is the difference between those two if you haven’t noticed it already: I had a whole month (or even more) to study the photos provided for the errand and I studied them good. Still the result seems flat, unrealistic, cartoonish, even ugly! Although photographs sometimes provide you with a lot of information, they are still flat images of three-dimensional forms… And don’t get me started on the quality!
Real life models move, yes. Sometimes they move a lot! But I came to realizing this is actually the best part of drawing from life: you get to study are REALLY get to know your model: from all angles, and sometimes: in different moods : ) You get to know their facial treats in a three-dimensional way and this helps with understanding anatomy faster and better than any book can teach you.
So my advice is: get a model! Get your mum or brother or friend to pose for you for a couple of hours and see for yourselves how awesome and simple the human head/body is in fact.
And here are the promised stages:
(as always, click on the images to enlarge them (they do not open in new tab/window))
mastR out
MastrWorks 