Adding Age to a Portrait

                                                          By Lauren Davis
 
Opposite of my last post, an equally difficult task is portraying realistic age in portrait the delicate balance of highlight and shadows is crucial when creating believable wrinkles and contours. Author Jack Hamm recommends keeping in mind a number of things including the ear length, drooping eyelids, and lines in the forehead. (Hamm 38)  I decided to draw this one based off of a photo due to my lack of experience in the technique. In honor of the new season, I based mine off of a photo of Peter Capaldi, the 12th doctor on BBC's Doctor Who. This is my drawing.

The Example Photo

  Step 1- The Outline and Winkle Lines

The outline of a person changes a deceptively large amount with age. Hamm said "The flesh drops at the jowls and the chin bone protrudes."(Hamm, 38) I started by outlining the face keeping these facts in mind. Afterwards I drew up the shape of the hair and drew the contours for all the wrinkles. It is important to keep the anatomy correct wile doing this. Hamm recommends focusing on sinking the eyes, thinning the lips and adding lifework to the forehead.(Hamm 38) It is okay to make the lines darken then usual guide lines because you will need to add highlights surrounding them.

                                  Step 2-  The Shading and Highlights

The most difficult part of shading wrinkles
for me is preserving the desired skin tone.

I happened to choose a pale British man for my model, so it is important to add light between the shadows. I blended out the wrinkles with my finger and then erased the pencil marking on both sides of them. Afterwards, I lightly added in the darker parts of the face with a duller pencil. Notice along with the face, the neck has different shading then other pictures. Hamm reminds an artist, "The neck becomes gaunt making the skin hang in drapes." (Hamm, 39) I tried to incorporate this into the picture. 

                                 Step 3- The Hair and Finishing Touches

                                    

I happened to choose one of only pictures of this actor where he didn't have messy hair. I tried to incorporate the contours of his light grey hair in the drawing. Wile the author reminds that the hair usually thins with age, Peter Capaldi doesn't seem to have this problem. (Hamm, 38) After I got the hair to a good place, I added depth to the eyes, shadows to the hair and color to the outfit. Then the piece was complete.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I like the way this came out. I liked the books advise, but wish it had more unique help for problems that spring along the way. I disappointed at some of the obvious and self-explanatory tips. So what do you think? Do you use any of these methods or do you have your own? Leave it in the comments below. 🔹

                                                            Citations 

Hamm, Jack. Drawing the Head and Figure. Time Warner International, 1963.

“The 12th Doctor .” The Mary Sue , The Mary Sue , www.themarysue.com/peter-capaldi-plays-doctor-one-last-time/.

Drawing a Side View Face with a Four Square Method

By Lauren Davis 

One of the more difficult techniques when it comes to female portrait drawing is a side view face. Getting the eyes nose and mouth just right can be near impossible. Jack Hamm recommends this four square method for beginners. Hamm said, “You can use it to get the proportions correct.” (Hamm, 30) This the picture I ended up though using this trick and how I got there.  

Step 1 - The Setup 

The first step is drawing a square with a cross through the middle of it. This is how you achieve the "four squares." I used a ruler because I can't draw a straight line to save my life. Then you use cue lines to add in facile features. The author said, "Watch out for how the bridge of the nose may run into the eye if the face is in semi-profile." (Hamm, 26) He warned the artist to keep the bridge consistent with the position based on the face. (Hamm, 26) After drawing the basic shapes you can continue to shading and detail work. Make sure to have the pupil of the eye facing the correct direction and the eyelashes pointing out. Also, remember that the lips go outside the square.

                                                Step 2- Hair and Shading 

After you finish the setup, the next step is very similar to the first drawing. A simple shading process should suffice. By adding places of light and shadow you give your picture life and the illusion of depth. The jawline contour is especially important with the side view. Changing the placement and the darkness of it and the cheekbones will drastically change the shape and feel of the face. Cheekbones and jawline are the focal points of the makeups shading. The nose and lips are less important. I chose a very odd hairstyle for this one based off an example from the book. I was very disappointed with how it turned out but it's not terrible.

                      Step 3 - Final thoughts and Finishing Touches 

For finishing touches, I completed the hair, fixed some of the rough edges and evened out the hairline. Overall, I didn't thank this method was very helpful. I tried very hard to understand the forms that could be helped by the box and struggled to see the use. But I liked the help in getting the eye placement correct and I like the eyebrows better in this piece. I think overall it's not bad and I'll appreciate any help I can get on profile sketches. What do you think? Have you tried this and found it helpful or do you have a better method? Leave it in the comments below. 🔹

                                                     Citation

Hamm, Jack. Drawing the Head and Figure. Time Warner International, 1963.

New Views

                                           Book's Reference Photo

Face to Face

Seeing as this may be my last post I wanted to not only put in my last efforts to try and create at least an outline of a portrait, but an animal drawing as well. As seen in the photos I started off from a picture of a woman with a layered grid atop the photo. Using a grid did make it easier for me to draw the picture in different parts. It also allow me to be able to not be too overwhelmed by the picture's entire layout. Though the grid did make this whole process a lot easier, I still did find trying to capture the likeness of the photo onto the paper to be quite a challenge. I found it really frustrating to convince myself that I hadn't totally messed up the photo but as I drew in the lines and read the book (Lee Hammond's Big Book of Drawing) I saw it read "I know it looks funny (with the grid lines), but it helps keep things in the right place. Take your time and strive for accuracy." (Hammond 49). So from that helpful advice I continued to finish my outline but I didn't think I was ready to start filling it in just yet.

Seal of Approval

Since I didn't go further on my portrait drawing I decided to take a break from people and promote myself to start drawing animals. In my book when it comes to good animal drawings it states "The trick is using the dark areas and light areas together to create shape and blending to create realism." (Hammond 70). So basically when going about this it's best to know what shapes you're working with when drawing a certain animal and identifying the lighter and darker areas to achieve effective realism.

Seal Drawing

Towards the right you see my first drawing of an animal which happens to be a seal. I really enjoyed drawing such a cute and adored animal, but that wasn't necessarily the only reason I started with it. I believe the book starts out with this specific animal in order to get the reader better accustomed to learning how to shade animals. With this animal especially, it's an essential component to make it look real. Though I am now working with drawing an animal, similar components of drawing people still come into play like with the shaping of eyes and shading.

Closing

It was really interesting to not only attempt my first real portrait while trying to learn and apply the realism techniques I've learned. I also really found a joy in drawing animals which I look forward to continuing in the future. My question to you is if there was anything that you would be willing to learn to draw realistically, and what would keep you motivated to keep trying even if it didn't come out right the first few times? Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment below about any questions or critiques that you have, all of it is welcome!

 Hammond, Poly Lee. Lee Hammond's Big Book of Drawing. First ed. Cincinnati, OH: North Light, 2004. Print.

Drawing: Facial Parts in Black and White

Blending and Contrast

Examples in Lee Hammond's Big Book of Drawing of proper

and improper blending of tones

In my last post I showed my drawing of a sphere, displaying how a mix of blending and shading helped it appear more lifelike and less like it was on a two dimensional surface. All of that was supposed to better help me understand how to use those elements along with the use of lighting to be able to apply the same techniques to drawing faces. According to the book I'm reading: Lee Hammond's Big Book of Drawing, a key element of drawing faces ". . .has a lot to do with the "lighting" or contrasts." (Hammond 16). Those were useful tools for me to learn and try and add on to my artwork. While I drew some of the features of a face I had to keep in mind how I used contrast (how I portrayed the light areas showing up against the dark areas) to keep it looking well. Blending was also a really helpful technique to be able to help my drawing appear more realistic. Since blending requires smearing some of the shades together it's easier to use a tool that still gets the job done without leaving your fingertips all grey. The book I have refers to it as a tortillion which is simply a piece of paper rolled into a cone shape, that I myself use in all of my drawings.

A picture of a tortillion as shown in Lee Hammond's Big Book of Drawing.
Used to help with proper blending of the artwork

Drawing Features

Before heading straight into drawing the face I focused on certain features before eventually adding them all together. I first started with drawing a nose as seen on the right and I tried to apply a good use of shading. Like the creases closer to the nose had to be darker in contrast to the lighter shaded spots like the areas that continue away from the nose. I also tried to make it appear as if the lighting was hitting straight on the top of the nose which is why it is mostly left in a white circle.

Next I worked on drawing a mouth which in comparison to the nose was a lot more difficult to draw. What made it especially hard was the fact that it wasn't easy to blend the dark color of the lips to make it appear smooth and life like. Not that my drawing is exactly very realistic, but it's very easy to see, especially on the bottom lip it's easy to see how I tried to color it in because there are darker lines on the lips rather than it all being one smoothly blended shade.

My final drawing put into work what I had practiced with the previous two drawings. This drawing was an attempt to apply the techniques I had used from drawing the nose and the mouth separately to be able to create this piece of them together. This shows the benefits of thinking of drawings as one large puzzle with many different pieces. I feel this is a successful method because in comparison to the previous drawings this one shows a better mastery of both blending and lighting techniques. The tones are also blended gradually rather than unevenly.

Before I attempt any drawing I always use a grid for scale because it can make drawing a lot easier, and according to my book ". . .using a grid will help you simplify all of the basic shapes" (Hammond 24). Once you've got a basic outline using the grid, that's when you erase the grid lines and start filling in your drawing, already establishing a base for your artwork.

Closing

By the time I finished my third drawing I felt that I had gotten a pretty good grasp of how to work with blending and applying lighting and contrast to my artwork. However, there is always room for improvement and I want to know how can I blend the shades of my drawings to make them appear smoother like the surface of a face, rather than the jagged edges of drawing lines? What else can make my drawings appear life like in your eyes? I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions in the comments down below regardless of your expertise on the matter. Just letting me know what I should add more or less of is all very helpful critique. Thanks for reading! :)

Bibliography: Hammond, Lee. Lee Hammond's Big Book of Drawing. Cincinnati, OH: North Light, 2004. Print.