Sunday's are pretty busy for me and to add to my load I decided to venture back into my studio and clear up the Christmas aftermath. I changed a few things around and opened up my brand new light box, purchased with the intention of actually making something of the illustrations I created last year for a book I intend to write.
Amidst the mayhem I managed to create a quick self portrait from life, using gouache and pigment liner, in my HP Canson watercolour journal.
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6 comments:
You were busy! Your portrait is very strong and expressive and sensitive. I note two areas you might want to think about: the distance from bottom of nose to eyes will be less than that pictured here and the eye will be equidistantly placed from the nose bridge, as a rule one eye-length apart. Many people make the mistake of placing the eyes vertically too far from the nose ( I know I do, often, before I catch myself!) and not paying attention to the basic symmetry of the face. Of course, everyone's features are a bit off kilter, but you know what I mean. I hope you don't mind my pointing out these small misplacements in what I otherwise a very strong painting.
Not at all Laura, I truly welcome such comments with open arms!
You haven't mentioned anything I didn't notice myself, so I've learned I am a good crit of my own work through this comment - Thankyou!
Time was very limited here and the usual checks that go with a longer piece were sacrificed...Intentionally I might add.
My aim is to be able to produce quick portraits like this regularly, then pick them to pieces, see my mistakes and hopefully improve so that I can train my hand to perfectly place features quickly. Hopefully leaving such faults, working from instinct like this will give me plenty of references to look back over and detect habitual mistakes I am making so I can focus on them and improve.
Speed isn't the important factor so much as hand-eye coordination - improving my vision and being able to reproduce that with ease. Working quickly just allows me to see how I work on instinct.
It's a plan! ;)
I do hope you will pop around and offer your view from time to time, I so enjoy your work!
Oh, good! I was worried because people often don't give this kind of feedback. I was lucky enough to get it in my training and I'm very grateful for it. Now, as to my spelling-while-typing skills---there's apparently quite a bit of room for improvement there!
Thank you for your kind words about my work. I admire yours, too.
Beautiful work!
Anita, You did a great job on this "quick self portrait" Nice shading on your face. Changing around your workspace is always good for inspiration. A lightbox would be a fun addition to have.
Hi Anita, This is really great. I like the skin tones. One thing I notice is that you have 'that look' on your face that we all have when we're concentrating on a self portrait. It's to do with the way you hold your mouth. Concentration, I guess.
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