Week 21 – Renaissance, Focus on Portrait.
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This
week, we were given a task of creating a self-portrait from life reference.
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Our own
faces are faces we know very well and are usually able to discern issues with,
so when trying to learn portraiture it can be a very useful tool to be able to
critique what is wrong with the face. The only caveat I found was that self-portraits,
if done wrong, can feel quite disheartening if you thought it was going well
and you see at the end all the errors as I have done a few times, so hopefully
this time it is a bit different.
Sketches:
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To begin,
I did some quick sketches of two different poses – a front on and a ¾ angle. I selected
to do the ¾ as a different week’s attempt – and kept the front on for this week
so that I could really focus on the symmetry and likeness of me.
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These sketches
look quite wonky, and the construction is not perfect – but they worked to let
me experiment with compositions for both what worked in my chair sitting for a
period and what looked aesthetically pleasing.
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If I were
to do this again, I might have done something to both style my hair and to
define my shoulders better – I was wearing a very big fluffy dressing gown at the
time and I liked the shapes of the collar, but in a small rectangular snapshot
you cannot see my shoulders. Compositionally, the piece could have used something
like my ponytail peaking up at the back to better define my hair – but that is
a nit pick more and not a crucial aspect to constructing my face on paper.
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Initial Sketches |
Initial version of portrait:
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Listening
to a common critique of not spending enough time in the sketch phase, this time
I did this drawing in 3 sittings – an initial sketch, an initial render stage,
and then a detailing stage.
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This
version of the portrait was ok – I think it bore a lot of resemblance to me,
and I thought compositionally it worked. I made most of the piece at this stage
mid tones – which I was told by my tutor was sort of cheating, but it worked in
this instance. From this, there is a very small amount of contrast in the image
– you basically have the defining lines on my face, some very small point highlights,
and then the dark of my hair. I was also annoyed at how shiny this piece was
becoming because I was using graphite, which made all the hair sections and a
bit of the face a lot brighter and less contrasted than in real life.
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As for
the proportions – most of the face is constructed in a way that both looks like
me and makes sense from a general proportion’s standpoint. I think I
exaggerated a few things, and I am at the stage where I was hyperaware for a
while that I made eyes on my portraits too big – and I have corrected the other
way now to where my eyes, whilst I did measure them, are too small to do not go
out wide enough. I also was quite kind to the size of my nose – so it looks
like I shrunk the size of my nose proportionally in. The mouth is ok – and I
struggled for a while with the ears because I realised, I drew the whole
portrait with my head at a slight angle (oops) so getting them correctly
aligned was a bit of a pain. My eyebrows, whilst I pluck them to have an arch,
are not that severe either – so going into edits I have a lot I could fix.
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If I were
to do this again, I would have used some chalk pastel media I have for the
darkest areas since they do not reflect light like graphite does. I also would prefer
to make the light source more recognisable, and to lighten the background to
avoid this strange muddiness on the whole piece.
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First version of portrait |
Final Version of portrait:
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With a
kneaded eraser, I rolled the eraser over the piece gently to soften all the
pencil I put on it so the changes I made would be a lot easier to mask the
underneath. I focussed a lot on the outer eye area since I knew this was going
to be a problem area/area of change, which worked nicely especially because in
the final I tried my best to blend the lines in to shading the sclera of the
eye.
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To try
and fix some of the issues, especially relating to contrast and proportion, I
began with a light sketch of where I thought things should move to. I also overall
lightened the background behind my portrait, which helped contrast my skin
colour. To get the really dark details on the eyes, I used a very sharp
charcoal pencil and defined the eye shape to the sketch I made. I also used
some darker chalk on the hair which helped massively to mattify it, although in
the final image it did shine up a little at the top where it gets a lighter
grey.
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I had
some lighter chalk too – and a white chalk pencil – so I could go in afterwards
to highlight areas like the nose and inner corners of the eyes better. I
generally darkened the left side of my face too to provide a main shadow direction
and softened the shading I did at the nose bridge since I was told in crit that
it was too harsh of a plane change. I also was told that the ears were quite
distracting, so I kept those in a similar value to the hair somewhat with some
shading on the right ear to help accentuate that light direction.
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Because I
widened the eyes, I also extended my smile to look more proportional. I also
made the eyebrows a bit less harsh, rounding the shapes as best I could however
because the pigment there was so dark it did not leave much room for change. I
also subtly changed the jaw shape to not only be a bit more flattering to myself
– but to also make the piece less wonky like I stated before where I made the
whole face lean to the left slightly.
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I did
this set of changes after a few days’ worth of looking away from the original
piece with the crit from the session written in notes, and I think that really
helped with making changes on this portrait. I think this is my most successful
yet self-portrait, which is exciting for me to say since it makes me feel like
I am making progress and I think this is the first one I am truly happy with.
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If I were
to do this again, I think the whole image could use some stronger shadows or
defined lines that were unfortunately lost when I added the chalk to larger
areas. All the values are very merged in the mid tones again; the overall
shading style is in the blending/smudging category for shading style, which I
think I consistent to the rest of my work. I think after last week’s model
having the opportunity for some texture in the hair – the piece could really
use a similar push. I also wish I had my hair done in the two braids I normally
wear, since then the whole piece could have had some interesting shapes in
shading the individual sections of the braids.
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Final Version |
Final Conclusions:
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I am
overall really happy with the outcome of this week’s task – it has taken a lot
of work, but I feel like it can be seen in the final result. I also think that
this has shown a lot of improvement between critique and the final image – so I
am more than happy to follow critique later to get similar results.
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If I were
to do this again, I would have changed the hair style to be plaits to add more interest
and changed the dressing gown to something a bit more form fitting to show I do
know where the shoulders are. Other than that, I am happy with this piece and
want to move onto next week’s task quickly.
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