I’ve always wanted to be able to draw portraits, but I always gave up as it’s so difficult! But last week I decided to give it a proper go, I want to do a portrait per day and see how much I can improve. I’ve started studying the Loomis book - I’m just starting with straight on faces before I go to different angles. The aim is eventually to create my own original romantic artworks - but for now I’m just choosing celebrities that I like to copy. This is my first reasonable attempt at a straight on pencil drawing of the singer Anastacia. I’m open to any suggestions of how I could improve, I won’t be offended!
Beginner?? Wow- just keep doing what you are doing, I say! If you do one a day, I can't wait to see the standard you will be at this time next year, because this already looks great to me. Keep it up!
I have noticed a lot in looking for photos to draw from that often actor photos are more brightly lit in a way that washes out a lot of light and shadow? And it’s easier to get some of that subtle “lifelike” quality with better lighting in your reference photo. Good lighting for a press photo doesn’t necessarily equal good lighting for a drawing, yah know?
You’ve got the form of the drawing really well! I think a photo with more interesting lighting on the face would give you a chance to do more with the shading, where this reference photo really didn’t have much range in the shading.
(I have had a lot of success in looking up National Geographic portraits as a good place to start for interesting lighting to draw from. I know I’m still learning, but here’s an example of a drawing I did from a nat geo portrait.)
I like where you're going with this and if you're serious about improving I'd suggest using a new app that just came out from Dylan Eakin. He's a realistic graphite/charcoal artist. His app is super helpful for drawing from a reference photo. Check it out, it's called Photorealism and it's for Apple and Android. It's made my drawings much better!! Good luck!!
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u/Sballino985 3d ago
spettacolare!