Grant - WIP 4

Grant now has a full head of hair. It was tricky, because he's got some long locks that overlap others, and a lot of wave, so I had to be careful and do each lock at a time. I tried to keep the band of light consistent as well as the shading on the sides. Next I'll tackle the plaid shirt he's wearing, another first for me. Wish me luck.

Grant - WIP 3

I finally worked up the nerve to start Grant's hair. This is the first time I've tried to create realistic hair - in the past, I'd do the face and then quickly top it off+ with hair that amounted to scribbles that somewhat followed the direction of hair growth. I'm happier with how this came out so far.

Grant - WIP 2

I spent a little more time on Grant, giving him ears and a mouth. I've also done his neck, but haven't scanned that part yet. I'm frankly nervous about doing his hair - I'm very pleased with how it looks so far, and I don't have any experience really trying to do realistic hair.

Grant WIP 1

I'm taking a little break from eye studies - I literally have 20 or so sources for my studies, and it's become a little overwhelming (and repetitive). After studying Vanderpoel, it's all downhill from there anyway.

Having recently read J.D. Hillberry's "Drawing Realistic Textures in Pencil" and Lee Hammond's "How to Draw Lifelike Portraits from Photographs", I decided to try just that - drawing a portrait from a photograph. I chose my youngest son, Grant, whose 18 month portaits were taken just a couple of months ago. I liked the expression on his face in this one, and thought it would make a good model for my first serious portrait attempt. I've spent a few lunch hours and an evening on it so far, and have used mostly F, 2B and 3B graphite with just a little charcoal for the eyes and some accents. I think overall it's pretty good, but I may need to lighten it up a bit. I'm worried about the hair, because I haven't really had much experience doing realistic hair. We'll see how it goes.

Eye Studies Part 6: Gary Faigin, "The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expressions"

There are lots of books that describe themselves as "definitive", but I haven't seen many that live up to that description as well as Gary Faigin's book, "The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expressions". Faigin not only goes into great detail about facial structures, and what the artist should be aware of above and below the surface, but it backs each observation up with numerous illustrations. This book rivals Vanderpoel's book in its detailed analysis of the underlying structure of the face, and it focuses mainly on what makes one face different from another, and how facial expressions change its appearance.