Lesson 5 Part 2

It's very interesting to see the different interpretations of the hair but they all clearly read as hair. I'm also very impressed by the accuracy that each portrait shows even as the assignments get more challenging.

Lesson 5 Profiles

This weeks profile of Helen Menken was a real work out in doing hair which is one of the big challenges in doing portraits. The trick is to see the hair as a collection of shapes rather than a collection of individual hairs. It is an ability that comes with practice.

Profile #1 (Part 2)

It's inspiring to see everyone growing in their drawing ability and confidence. It's now expected that the drawings will be accurate and we are starting to move beyond accuracy to capturing personality. It's also interesting to see how everyone is starting to develop their own style.

Profile #1 Happiness From The Islands

Upside Down Stravinski

This introductory drawing is done with the image upside down. In this way our normal method of drawing is rendered useless and we need to rely on new skills and the results are so often beyond what we feel we are capable of. This drawing tackles a couple of real technical challenges namely, the crossed fingers and the crossed legs but some how when we look at it upside down we have to see it simply as a collection of shapes and lines and by seeing them in a new way we are able to draw them in a new way.

Commenting

As artists we work so much alone that we tend to thrive on those moments when we can communicate about our work and receive comments. This, then, is a plea to ask you to comment. I've set it up so that you don't need a google account to comment. Click on the comments link below the post and you will be directed to a new page. Write your comment and choose Comment As > anonymous. You will have to enter the security word that you are shown and then your comment will appear.

P.S. If you comment as anonymous sign your name at the end of your comment, if you don't min, so that in spite of the anonymous label we will know who commented.

Rex

Full Frontal #2 Don Knotts

I was surprised that so many people knew Don Knotts but I had forgotten that he was in some fairly recent TV shows. This image was from his days in the Andy Griffith show (which as some one pointed out had one of the great, feel good, theme songs). His slightly loopy character is shown in this image.

Full Frontal #1 King Tutankhamun

This image of the death mask of King Tutankhamun is a extremely beautiful likeness made of gold. It was our first portrait. The dark accents of the head dress make the image particularly attractive. What I find very interesting about these images is that even in this first drawing and in spite of the fact we used the same reference we already see individual interpretations. One of the challenges of this drawing is that rather than shadows a lot of the dark accents are reflections.

Student Samples #1

Welcome

I've just started this new blog dedicated to my drawing class, 'Basic Drawing Skills'. There are just so many exciting things going on in class and so many wonderful drawings being done that I wanted to be able to show case in their own blog. So, please check it out. I hope that this blog will help create a little bit of community around all those people who are taking the class or just love to draw. I also encourage commenting to increase the dialogue.

For information about this class contact me.

Thanks to everyone for their participation.

Rex Beanland