More from portrait class

Hey all!!!

Well, the semester is coming to an end. I'm going to have to put up a post that shows the work I did this semester and my progression through the semester. But not today! Today I have a portrait I did in my class. This one is important because I took time to bring it to a more complete state. I was talking with one of my professors, and he had taken a look at my portfolio and made the comment that I need to start finishing projects. He said if my  portfolio was truly the best work i had, then i had a lot of work to do, especially learning the fundamentals of art. That was hard to swallow, until i realized that my portfolio was full of mostly unfinished art. I hadn't spent all that much time on any of the art that was in there, and the art that was in there had been done a few years ago. I feel like my professor was trying to say (he is sometimes a bit cryptic) that my portfolio wasn't really showcasing my true talent, and I needed to bring more artwork to a finished state, and then put it all in my portfolio.

I was trying a different technique with this one. I did a detailed line under-drawing, then rubbed a charcoal-saturated shami over the whole image to put down a tone. Then with a kneaded eraser, and a mars eraser, I pulled out the mid-tones, and highlights. I also went in with a charcoal pencil and put the core shadows in, details in the eyes, and the hair, wiping and rubbing with the shami or my fingers to get those nice subtle blends or gradients.

I also used this technique on some other pieces:

These ones were  little light because my shami wasn't saturated enough, but the technique shines through. I enjoy the "light and subtle touch" this technique brings to the work.

So I put this image up here for contrast and comparison. I want to showcase one aspect of this technique that I almost forgot, but is VERY important. When you rub the shami value on, generally you leave that value as the value for the shadow itself. To be specific, this should be the value of the reflected light in shadows. Core shadows should be darker than this value, and mid-tones and highlights should be lighter than this value. In the above picture, I put the shadows in, and tried to use the shami values as mid-one values. it ends up with a very blocky and ragged look to the image. 

Anyways, just wanted to share what I learned!