I will be posting work for this repeat of Don Seegmiller’s Face and Figure Workshop in this Flicker album.
Trying to find my marks again after a long period of inactivity. Still – once past the frustrations of the ‘ugly stage’, it is starting to feel good again
For this first sketch, I tried to get the the structure and value right – not so much the resemblance. That sort of thing tends to come naturally if the structure is right.
About 2 hours with Painter.
[Male 01-03]
For tonight’s homework, I thought I would take a shot at the female portrait, in color this time.
About 2 hours overall in Painter, with only one brush and the limited color palette provided for this week.
I am still having difficulties blocking the right structure in the early stages and as a result, I end up spending too much time correcting proportions later on. Drapes are also still a problem
For the final picture, I had to move around her left eye and move down her lips in order to make it look a little more like the original model.
I am going to try and stick to one quick sketch a day (one or two hours tops) for the two models. Over the weekend, I will pick up the most advanced in each series and detail it to do a final copy.
[Female 01-03]
I am using a small set of … Don’s brushes. They are available on his website and they have become my favorite set since the last workshop. The brush I have been using in particular is simply called ‘Don’s Fav’.
t feels good that it is coming back little by little.
I am always amazed at the effect of copy/pasting and resizing, even very slightly. Compare the last two color pictures to see what I mean.
There are many tips that I picked up during the first workshop. I have to resist the tempation to blab about all of them to not spoil Don’s progression through the weekly excercises
One tip I can share at this point is to resist the temptation to scrap an image too early. The ugly stages are very frustrating. But more than once, I found that the difference between an ugly sketch and good proportions were just 10% resize of the head or moving an eye 10 pixels to the right.
About an hour and a half, still in Painter with one brush.
This one had a rough start compared to the first attempt, but it evolved a lot more gracefully and zeroed in on a more appropriate structure than the first one did.
[Male 02]
Color sketch again – this time I tried to pay more attention to the opacity of my brush. I started with high opacity for very early, broad brush strokes and gradually made the brush more and more transparent as I went into more details.
The difference in resulting colors is striking – to me at least. They feel sharper, a lot more vivid. I finally got the levels of shades I was looking for, instead of the blurred, washed out strokes I used to have.
Proportions are still not right but this is a lot closer to what I want to have
Almost 2h30 this time – but well worth it !
[Female 02]
Inching a little bit closer to the final version.
I didn’t have a lot of time tonight, so I spent most of the time in structural adjustments. Laying out the foundation for tomorrow’s detailing work.
Her face still looks flat. I have to find better ways to inject value without breaking the balance of color.
Edit: Another hour and I got rid of most of her yellowish tone and flatness. It’s amazing how a tiny veil of red in the right places brings skin to life.
[female 02-08]
The clothes were more of a place holder at that stage, but I would probaly have overlooked the influence of color from layers under the clothes and around them.
Here is the final color portrait (as in – final for now). Overall, I would estimate it to about 6 or 7 hours of work. I may tweak it later today if I find more time after finishing the black and white one. I am getting to the point where I have to step back anyway – I have looked too much at that one for now.
I tried to apply most of Don’s guidelines as I could think of at the same time – color bleeding between surrounding and figure, brush across the shapes to smooth things out, more opacity in the brush to avoid a look that is too smooth, some red over the skin for translucency, hard edges vs soft edges and so on.
There are a lot of imperfections still, but I am pleased to get that painterly feel I was missing
Edit: I am adding my black and white image, final for now, in case I don’t have time to work on it more tonight.
[Male female final]