Category: 4) Portraiture Prep

Good effort, Bryant, as far as it goes, but you need to slow down and look still more closely. Happily you have not substituted preconceived symbols for her features (like almond eyes or peanut shaped nostrils)–these are very much coming from the Degas–but you need to examine and push them further, from being more specific and particular about the shapes of the negative spaces around her head, to centering the features on her face, to the shapes of the eyebrows, and more.

Her eyes are also larger and more widely set. The one on the left especially is too close to the bridge of the nose. Notice that on the Degas (and as a rule) that the tear duct is directly above the outside edge of the nostril. You did better at this on our left side.

In the final stage, Degas applies his hatching more softly and deliberately. There are smudged tones here that don’t appear in the original, like the one between and just above her eyes.

You’re applying the fundamental lessons of the semester but not consistently and thoroughly enough, but all the same she’s looking back at us with a tender and tentative expression not so different than the original.

Good work overall, Ben,  notably the lovely texture and subtle value gradations you’ve achieved with the side of your pencil (I assume). Just a few notes:

Your features are all too large, something that needed to be ironed out in the schematic. Because you’ve done this uniformly you still have an almost physiologically plausible portrait, but the eyes are impossibly oversized (if very expressively so) for those eye sockets.

Nevertheless, the eyes are very well drawn, including the less defined and slightly obscure eye on our left. The eye on our right is missing a tear duct, and the distinctive shape it imparts to that part of the eye.

The edge of the shadow on the bridge of the nose is too firm—that’s a softer gradation—and that shadow is a bit too dark.

The mouth is beautifully and very sensitively drawn—including that delicate reflected light on the upper lip—gorgeous—but it’s overall much too large, as mentioned earlier.

The modeling on the chin and her profile on our left are too dark and absolute-they should be subtler.

The contour of the ear on our right is lighter and thinner, to help it go back.

The strands of hair and whatever that is on her shoulder, as well as the contour of her shoulder on our right, need to be lighter and more delicate.

Great job on the hair, but the shadows on the hair are the same or darker than the shadows on the face.

Despite the above, many important achievement here. Just stay with the schematic longer until all is in order.

Simply tremendous job, Amanda. Beautifully composed and organized and a very fine response to Hanna’s modeling technique. The only room for improvement is subtler gradation (more gradual fading to white) on the shadow on the forehead, and a bit richer value range and modeling in the eye socket and eye on our left. The whites of her eye there are a shade darker.

Excellent work–and very fine studies as well. Nice to see–

Excellent work, Aadhya. A very sensitive, confident, and subtle rendition of the original. Just a few notes:

The whites of her eyes on the  left (our left) are not that light. They’re noticeably shaded in the original, along with every value in the eye socket, making that eye more mysterious.

Her upper lid on that eye is also a bit wider, lowered, and more relaxed–yours looks a bit startled.

The base of the nose should be a bit wider (look for it to be the width between the tear ducts, as it is in the original), and the modeling a bit softer.

The upper lip is fuller and more softly drawn (less sharply defined edges).

Great job–

 

These studies are very good.  Nice to see–

Fine work, Grace, from locating the image and its proportions during the schematic to your very fine touch, emulating Degas’—very much what I was hoping this exercise could offer.

A few notes:

You’ll note that Degas’ model has a more inward expression, like she’s lost in thought, while yours feels very attentive to us and engaged. It’s because his upper lids are lowered just a scintilla more, eclipsing more of the irises, which are also slightly larger in his.

Her eyebrows are not the continuous arched curves that you show, but rise from the center outward on a straight axis (the darker portion) before bending downward more abruptly, and at a slight angle as they also become lighter in value (they’re turning back onto the side of the head).

The shadow on the bridge of the nose isn’t quite as dark, and curves slightly. The upper bridge of her nose, just below the brow, is also narrower.

Good work on the hair, but still a tendency to add a lot of hair-like lines. Note there are very few in the original—mainly diagonal hatching to establish a value, and then a few select hairs.

The shadow on her hair band is too dark and defined. It wants to frame her face and add volume (as a cross-contour line) but not draw too much attention to itself.

Great job keeping all of your edges soft and your touch light. Wonderful to see.

Well done, Grace—I commend your patient attention and sensitive interpretation.

 

 

Beautiful drawing, Ian, and a very thorough exploration of the Degas. Curiously, like Ben’s treatment of the same image, your features are oversized. Also like his they’re nevertheless almost physiologically possible, but just a bit too large—those eyes could never fit in those sockets, but it’s a distortion that makes them very expressive. Also very well modeled.

One consequence is that that they take up more than their share of the face, so that the space between the nose and the ear, on our right, should be wider. This is also true because you made the head somewhat too narrow to begin with (the negative space on the left is too wide).

Great exploration of value and of Degas’ touch, including that reflected light on her upper lip. That tells me you were really looking. I commend you for not trying to show us more of the eye on the left than he did—it’s hidden in shadow. Allowing the “whites” of the eye to get the dark is a good example of overcoming a major preconception.

The light on her cheek on our left is a little too light; the shadow on the nostril on our right a little too dark; and the highlight on her lower lip a little too dark, but small matters—nicely done.

Good job on the hair as well, although you’ll notice the lines representing hair disappear in the highlight on his. Don’t be so dogged in reporting all the strands. Note how few of those lines he actually includes.

 

Good work–

(MW): Beautifully done, Grace, from finding the image on the page to drawing the contours and line qualities with great sensitivity, to your subtle and consistent modeling of values. I’m struck that you think it’s too dark. Some of your mid-tones are maybe on the verge of being too dark but they aren’t, and there are much darker values yet to go in the eye socket on the left, which is such a focal point, under the tip of the nose and at the corners of the mouth.

The eye on our right is just a bit too dark, I’ll grant you that. It appears he went over that area with vertical swipes of his kneaded eraser (judging by their width).

This was a topic in your O’Keeffe as well. You might be overly concerned about going too far and messing up, but you haven’t yet–and until you do you’ll never learn when you’ve crossed the line. But this is much closer to the original than the O’Keeffe–good progress.

Two notable differences about your shading from his—the shadows have much subtler and softer gradations into the adjoining highlights—especially on the cheekbones (there’s a modulation between your lights and the next darker value–a very light grey–that you could still use more effectively)—and you’ve introduced an overall horizontal hatching, as well as his vertical hatching, that I don’t see in the original.

The fact is you do it so well that you’ve made it all your own—a strong unifying texture.

Can’t say enough about the line quality of your contours, however—truly exquisite, and your finest work yet. Every bit as subtle, nuanced, and confident as the original.

Fine work–

 

 

One thing that I was worried about going into this project was my ability to find and distinguish the various planes of the face. For example, in my past attempts at drawing faces I have always been unreasonably frustrated with cheekbones. I was never able to reflect the actual angles and appearance that those shadows create. One tip that really helped me from Proko (and actually surprised me with how well I was able to do this) was the simple idea that you should shade the the dark areas first and leave the highlights of the image as what remains. I think the instructional video about the plains of the nose also really helped me, especially when talking about the “Wings” of the nose and how the shadows vary there. I am proud of this drawing, but I do think I over did the shading, as the original that I was copying is overall much lighter in value. I did try the technique of smudging pretty tentatively, but I think in the areas that I did apply it, it turned out alright.