Ok. Fixed the head shape and finished up. There's lots I'm not happy with, particularly the fine detail, but I'm not doing any more. Crappy quality photo sponsored, as ever, by iphone.
Are you doing all your work from photographs right now?
I think you could benefit from some really simple rendering practice, of the still life variety. Your placement and proportion problems are minimal compared to your lighting and volume problems, and I think its probably the result of working with photos with bad lighting.
Try a well lit still life of something simple, like an egg, and challenge yourself to render it as closely as possible.
Here's my egg. The best place for light in my house is the kitchen, but there's multiple spotlights, hence lots of shadows. I took a photo (from a different angle though, to show what I mean:
A few months from now, someone will look at the AC and just see thread after thread of eggs
Looking nice, but don't be afraid to have more contrast within the egg, too.
Thats looking prett good halen. I dont know if it was the egg practice or not, but that rendering looks way smoother than the last one you posted. Definitely and improvement.
Thank you John, I think it did help. Also I drew this bigger which seemed to have helped.
Not sure where it came from as I drew my coworker today and it came out pretty bad. I'm horrifically embarrassed about the eye placement which is really awful and I noticed only when I'd finished.
What stands out to me is the eyes and lips seem to be kind of abstracted. By that I mean they look like they are sort of default eyes and lips rather than the ones in front of you. Of course I can't say that for sure since I don't know what the person being referenced looks like.
Only other crit I would have is that it could probably use a little more tonal variety, it's all pretty mid-tone to me.
Still, the structure seems pretty good, and it looks like you're going in the right direction. Keep going.
Mastery is the result of ceaseless error, combined with ruthless self-appraisal.
Well, here's the ref... There's a lot I could have done better, but I'm hiding behind crappy pencil and worse paper I definitely agree about the tones - it's my main fault everyone criticises. I'm working on it :-/
I think most of your work here is suffering just as a result of having poor ref to work from, in terms of having enough information to show how the form is working. If your ref contains indistinct areas of light and shade, even the best draftsman would have a hard time overcoming that handicap enough to make a good drawing using it.
Wherever possible, try to look for ref that offers a distinct light/dark breakup, like this Bargue face:
This does an excellent job of showing off the form because of how the lighting is setup. If the artist had drawn the same model in an office with a ceiling of a bunch of diffuse fluorescent lights, the face would be totally flattened out and look terrible, even though the artist can clearly draw at a ridiculously high level. What's the point of being able to draw very well, and then not being able to actually make a good drawing because of something as silly as this? This artist knew that, that's why he chose his lighting with care.
Now, looking at that ref up there, you're immediately put at a disadvantage because of the lighting: diffuse light sources. Lots of white walls for that lighting to bounce off of, diffusing and confusing it further. Lighting that is only kinda distinct on one side of the head, but not on the face; so everything on the face gets flattened almost into a single value.
Most anyone would be fairly hard pressed to get a drawing from this ref that wasn't in some way awkward, just due to the lighting. Someone at a really high drawing level would either reshoot the ref under better conditions, or if not possible, would have to invent a stronger light scheme to make it work (which would require a lot of experience drawing work under better light conditions, in order to pull it off effectively.) Don't shoot yourself in the foot by forcing yourself to use mediocre ref.
I wrote down some guidelines (not hard and fast rules, but hopefully helpful) to help distinguish what makes decent ref for drawing versus poor ref. A photo can be beautiful in it's own right, and still be fairly worthless when it comes to drawing (and especially if you're trying to use it to learn how to draw.)
You know what's depressing? When you spend several hours of your life (over 2 days in this case) doing a drawing of someone, because they asked you to. And you post it, and they say they like it, and don't even reblog it.
Do some sketches like these, and them use them as building blocks to help you better understand form when you approach a referenced drawing. Try to work around a piece, rather than bring one area at a time to finish.
Posts
I think you could benefit from some really simple rendering practice, of the still life variety. Your placement and proportion problems are minimal compared to your lighting and volume problems, and I think its probably the result of working with photos with bad lighting.
Try a well lit still life of something simple, like an egg, and challenge yourself to render it as closely as possible.
I'm on it.
My first attempt:
Looking nice, but don't be afraid to have more contrast within the egg, too.
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
Not sure where it came from as I drew my coworker today and it came out pretty bad. I'm horrifically embarrassed about the eye placement which is really awful and I noticed only when I'd finished.
Only other crit I would have is that it could probably use a little more tonal variety, it's all pretty mid-tone to me.
Still, the structure seems pretty good, and it looks like you're going in the right direction. Keep going.
Wherever possible, try to look for ref that offers a distinct light/dark breakup, like this Bargue face:
This does an excellent job of showing off the form because of how the lighting is setup. If the artist had drawn the same model in an office with a ceiling of a bunch of diffuse fluorescent lights, the face would be totally flattened out and look terrible, even though the artist can clearly draw at a ridiculously high level. What's the point of being able to draw very well, and then not being able to actually make a good drawing because of something as silly as this? This artist knew that, that's why he chose his lighting with care.
Now, looking at that ref up there, you're immediately put at a disadvantage because of the lighting: diffuse light sources. Lots of white walls for that lighting to bounce off of, diffusing and confusing it further. Lighting that is only kinda distinct on one side of the head, but not on the face; so everything on the face gets flattened almost into a single value.
Most anyone would be fairly hard pressed to get a drawing from this ref that wasn't in some way awkward, just due to the lighting. Someone at a really high drawing level would either reshoot the ref under better conditions, or if not possible, would have to invent a stronger light scheme to make it work (which would require a lot of experience drawing work under better light conditions, in order to pull it off effectively.) Don't shoot yourself in the foot by forcing yourself to use mediocre ref.
I wrote down some guidelines (not hard and fast rules, but hopefully helpful) to help distinguish what makes decent ref for drawing versus poor ref. A photo can be beautiful in it's own right, and still be fairly worthless when it comes to drawing (and especially if you're trying to use it to learn how to draw.)
Please excuse my ugly mug.
Twitter
Thank you so much!!
Whine etc.
http://iruka.iseenothing.com/monthlyenrichment/tumblr_mgbimj0f3Q1r0v3zro6_1280.jpg
http://iruka.iseenothing.com/monthlyenrichment/tumblr_mgbimj0f3Q1r0v3zro7_1280.jpg
http://iruka.iseenothing.com/monthlyenrichment/tumblr_mgbimj0f3Q1r0v3zro8_1280.jpg
http://iruka.iseenothing.com/monthlyenrichment/tumblr_mgbimj0f3Q1r0v3zro9_1280.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-la96AkCuifU/T1O90vtGTGI/AAAAAAAAElU/LypNiRjIOOg/s640/BurneHogarth2.png
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Iut3Bh6AYg/T1O-ZmjoMeI/AAAAAAAAElc/w9XAZlff2s0/s640/AndrewLoomis1.png
Do some sketches like these, and them use them as building blocks to help you better understand form when you approach a referenced drawing. Try to work around a piece, rather than bring one area at a time to finish.
Bit more progress
Anyway, here's a quick pencil drawing I did because someone asked me to:
I AM NOT FINISHED YOU HEAR.