Level 2: Week 4: Faces, Sketching From Life

For four weeks I kept throwing challenges at this group and all of you kept stepping up to deliver extraordinary work! Upon Penny's suggestion, I brought in a variety of plants and flowers for doing study sketches of contours from real life. Everyone thought that drawing faces would be a good direction, so for our final lesson we studied the proportions of the skull and facial features, all with great success.

It was truly a wonderful experience working for eight weeks with this group. I look forward to continuing our wildly sketchy adventures in the future! --Rob

Matt


You really put your ability for drawing accurate proportions to the test with this set of sketches, Matt. The results are superb!! In your sketch of the Degas girl, you show the realistic form of her face by sketching bold and delicate tonal values. Great work in lifting out highlights with the kneaded eraser, especially the reflective light under the nose. I'm liking your exploration of sketching the texture of skin and structure of facial features. Your studies of the skull are executed with a confident sketching hand and sharp eye for proportion. Nice shift to tighter line work in the contours and textures of the young woman's profile! Check the reference picture of the girl's profile. Is the proportion of the back of the head correct?



Your ability to draw accurate, realistic contours from nature really shows in your study sketches of the flowers! Your distinctive sketching style has really started to emerge in your work, especially when you add spontaneous elements from your imagination. Keep experimenting in your sketchbook.




Michele


The past two lessons have had a BIG impact on your work, Michele! Your observational skills jumped up several notches in your drawing of the young woman's profile!! Doing a quick study of the skull profile helped you in drawing accurate proportions and to position her facial features correctly. The realistic contours of the eye and ear are very well drawn! REAL nice how you loosened up your line work for the sketchy front view of the skull, especially where you drew correct measurements on top of mistakes--without erasing! :-) The contour lines in your studies of the flowers are exquisite. Definitely continue with exploring drawing from nature and taking your studies into larger, stylized compositions. (The primed canvases await you!)




Penny


These drawings show major progress in drawing accurately from observation, Penny!!! In your skull studies, by sketching correct proportional measurements on top of mistakes, we're seeing your observational/thinking process right on the paper--really cool! This helped you to set up correct and realistic proportions on the faces of the man and young woman. The contour edges and positioning of the woman's features are particularly well drawn; the measurements are right on. In watching you sketch the flowers from real life, I noticed how you shifted from drawing what you thought they should look like to seeing the actual contours and organic forms. These were major steps in adding more realism to your artwork. Keep it going by sketching from nature.