M2M Day 42: Outlining Natalie Portman
This post is part of Month to Master, a 12-month accelerated learning project. For December, my goal is to draw a realistic self-portrait with only pencil and paper.
Yesterday, I practiced triangulating the proportions of a few celebrity heads.
For example, here’s one I did of Natalie Portman.
Today, I practiced triangulating the complete head shape and gauging the level of features.
It took about 45 minutes.
To assess my work, I overlaid the sketch on Natalie.
My Critique
- The face shape is accurate
- The level of the features is accurate
- The angle of the features is accurate
- The center line curves a little too quickly as it moves up between the eyes
- The neck shape is inaccurate— I especially misestimated the starting point of the neck on the right side.
- Above the right eye, the angle of the head/hair is too steep
- The peak of the head is too steep
- The angle of the hair above the ear isn’t steep enough
Overall, I’d give the sketch a B-.
Since I was accurate with the face shape and the level of features, if I continued working, I suspect I would develop the face fairly accurately. As a result, I would likely have enough accurate information to gradually correct the major mistakes with the head and hair shape.
Tomorrow, I’ll practice again on a different celebrity.
Read the next post. Read the previous post.
