Fairfield Friends Portraits Take Two

2 thoughts on “Fairfield Friends Portraits Take Two”

1. This week I continued my exploration of drawing expressionistic portraits of my friends by introducing new drawing materials and color. After reading the advice of my peers and Professor Wethli, I decided to completely abandon shading and just work with contour lines. I used only sharpie instead of pencil, as I wanted to experiment with a darker and bolder line. I also tried to add a bit more detail. I then decided that I wanted to try applying color to the shapes created by contour lines in my portraits. I first tried this with one of the small pencil contour drawings I made in week 1 (not pictured above) to test how it looked. I liked the appearance and decided to apply it to the final contour drawing I created this week. I feel like I improved this week on more confidently and accurately creating continuous contour drawings. I tried to be more selective with choosing lines to include in the hair of my subjects. I do think that I improved but could still use some work on this technique. I also am proud of the structure and dimension I created in my drawings, though I do this they could benefit from, in some cases, being simpler with fewer lines. Finally, I like the appearance of the color, however, I am curious to hear other opinions. Should I add color to all of my drawings? Should I add it to a select few? Should I continue using sharpies? Thanks!

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   1. Olivia, I love the sharpie. The lines look much more confident compared to last week. When I zoomed into the pictures, I could see the places where you had paused in your line, and the sharpie had created a dot of ink. I can’t decide what I think about it – on one hand it gives some texture and an interesting feel, but on the other hand, continuous contours might want to flow a little more continuously. Perhaps try speeding the flow of the sharpie line up, while still being attentive? Or try some other pen? You could even experiment with ink pens or just a stick and ink. You have improved the hair so much! I also love the choices you have made while contouring the faces. My favorite is the girl looking down with her hand on her face.

      As for color… I like how it pops but when I looked closer, as with any marker, it created lines showing your the action of your coloring. This is unavoidable with sharpie, and I think it distracts from the already very beautiful and volumetric black contours. If you do want to do color, could you try pastels or paint or something else? I would also think more carefully about what colors you put where. Instead of confusing the depth of the images, perhaps you could do darker colors where the pictures are more shadowed, and lighter ones for highlights?

      Overall, I really love the progression of these and am very excited to see where they go. It is going to be a really cool collection all together!

      Hope you are well!
      Perrin

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