I’m just bored with this guy. And it shows. His face lacks the character and depth of the original painting, in particular when compared with the jacket (which I am really happy with, by the way). I’ve lost focus and just can’t seem to concentrate on getting the values to match any more. So you know what? I’m moving on to other subjects. Maybe I’ll come back to it someday and finish it (don’t hold your breath), but this has taken way too many hours and I’m just not that into it.
I had plans outside the house tonight; so I was only able to spend about 45 minutes.
I like the way this is coming together, but there is a war going on in my head. On one side is an army of perfectionists who want the outcome to be beautiful and accurate no matter how long it takes. They are highly skilled, disciplined and precise. On the other side is a rag-tag crew of militant anti-perfectionists (is there really no English word that means the opposite of ‘perfectionist’!?). They are poorly trained, but hell-bent on swift and decisive action so they can move on to the next battle before they have a chance to think too much about it.
I just wish I could achieve this kind of result without all the time investment. I have other things I want to draw. And I want to draw them all NOW. The thought of spending 4 or 5 more nights on this is not appealing.
I’m feeling a little tired today (didn’t sleep well at all last night, and I have no idea why), but I still managed to spend about 30 minutes this evening on the Manet copy.
I wanted to start with the darkest darks first, so I can judge everything else against that baseline. I used an 8B pencil and a blending stump for the darkest parts of the jacket.
I have a little work to do to fix the face, but I was pretty sure that if I tried that tonight, it would just make things worse. I’ll save that for a night when I’m feeling a bit better.
Based on my progress tonight, I’m guessing I have another 3 1/2 to 4 hours of work remaining. I must keep this in mind and not let myself fall into the trap of hurrying through just to get it done. I can almost hear my high school art teacher’s voice in my head: “quality takes time”.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how I’d like to develop my drawing style. As much as I admire the photorealistic work that some people can achieve, and as much as I’d like to get to the point that I can achieve that myself, I think I’d rather focus on developing a painterly style. What better way to develop that style than to copy a few paintings?
This is a work by Manet that I’m copying from an image on my laptop.
So far, I’ve put a grid on the paper (just in case you haven’t noticed), and laid out the basic composition. It took a little over an hour to get to this point.
It’s interesting, because I thought the grid would actually speed up the process. Instead, it only served to point out how far off my drawing is. This is one of the few drawings that I’ve actually pulled out an eraser — I usually just massage the drawing to fit with whatever I happened to lay down. The grid, I guess, serves as the drawing police: “You are out of line! Get back!”
Original by Manet
This is also my first multi-day drawing. I usually do whatever I can in one sitting, mainly because I don’t want to let all my stuff stay out, taking up space on the dining room table or kitchen counter. Working from a picture helps with that.
Stay tuned…
(For reference, I’ve also included a picture of the original)
Laughter is one of those things that everyone understands, no matter the language. Even the deaf laugh the same as the hearing. No particular point here. Just sayin’…
This was inspired by a photo posted on thing-a-day. It also fits nicely with Everyday Matters challenge #53 (Draw a mouth).
The drawing was done entirely with a mechanical pencil (along with a blending stump) in my sketchbook. I can’t seem to get those deep, deep darks with some of my softer drawing pencils (baffling); so even though it takes a little longer, the mechanical is quickly growing on me. It took me about an hour for those keeping score.
Until tomorrow… laugh.