My Art: Part 1
I like to draw. Paint. Shade. This will be a blog series explaining what I’ve made through the years, seeing improvement. I should have started witting about my art a long back because I’ve definitely improved since I’ve started.
When I started doing art, I wasn’t sure what I was good at. But know, I’ve found that my strengths lie in sketching rather than painting (watercolor, acrylic, or tempera paint) or oil pastel. I find it hard to control my brush when doing so. Smudging the oil pastel properly can also be a challenge at times. There is, without a doubt, room for improvement.
Without further ado, here is my latest artwork:
As you can see, I attempted to draw and shade a man in a portrait-styled sketch. I think the attempt was quite successful, considering the last time I drew a proportionate human face was a while ago. I would also like to mention that I this is a copy of another person’s work, but this doesn't really matter because I hardly found myself looking at the original sketch.
I started to sketch with an outline of the face. I had trouble on the man’s jawline, but I pulled through and it came out okay. Then I drew the eyes, and nose (just a slightly detailed silhouette). I had a bit of with the eyes, and putting the highlights in the iris. I shaded both the iris and pupil with the same tone, then I defined the pupil with a darker tone. I had to carefully place the highlights by erasing it from the pupil. This made it seem lighter (almost white). The nose was quite easy, but it turned out a bit misshaped. The lines are much darker and stands out more than the other features. Next, the lips. I hardly had to do anything here. I just shaded the parts around the lip and it turned out pretty nice. After I shaded the entire face (I shaded the face imagining the light is right in front of the subject), I had to do the hair. At the time of drawing it, I thought this would be the most intimidating, but I was wrong. You can’t really go wrong with the hair. All you have to do is move the pencil is similar strokes and directions and voilà, before I knew it, I was done.
All in all, I was pretty surprised how good my own artwork turned out. This goes to show that often times you may have untapped potential you haven’t discovered yet.
