Things I have learned....High Fidelity style!

I warn you this posting is much more selfish then need be, perhaps spending the last 4 days away from people and sitting at my drawing table in silence has led to a one ended rambling conversation, or maybe it will be if not helpful to someone, entertaining.



It's nearly 4 am and I have finished the epic portrait...it will be posted tomorrow evening as it is too big to scan here.

I try and learn from everything I do so that my work can get better and better and here is what I now know...some of it I have always known but reinforcement is key:

#1. No more taking on portraits needed in less time then it takes to create healthily. Last minute cramming may work like a charm in all aspects of life but having more time and stretching your artwork over that time period means you have more time to perfect your work, prevent disasters instead of wasting too much effort, and take time to sleep, work, do dishes and have a social life during the progress. I miss real people!! (and beer!!)

#2. Planning, planning, planning. No matter how strong the impulsive urge to dive in to a project pulls you, you must ALWAYS sketch up (as lightly as possible) a layout making sure to capture all key elements of each person before ANY shading or hard lines are applied. Planning is not done until you know for sure you have proportions, balance and layout perfectly set. This is something I have always struggled with, but it would have shaved at least 6 hours off this project.

#3. When doing multiple people in a portrait subjects must all be in similar lighting and on same horizontal plane. This is a new one I would have never thought of due mainly to lack of experience with group shots. Trying to draw different people with opposite shading and some from top view some from bottom view makes for a disaster, it isn't impossible when you have a good understanding of lighting and perspective and you know your subject well but from now on this is criteria I will enforce with all clients.

#4. Materials. I have always prided myself in making the best of what I have, drawing on ciggerette packages, using markers for dark shades, white out for highlights and other creative measures I have taken, but I know understand the simplicity of using different grades of pencils, it helps for layering which is essential for realism and makes life easier. I wish I could have done this drawing with that. I used mechanical pencils for the entire piece and because of that shading not only was %$#@ but I couldn't get the different values I wanted and that would have made this picture pop even more.

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST :
#5. Less really is more. When you are obsessed with detail as I am you tend to over shade, over accentuate and over pack a drawing. It makes for chaos, a lot of extra hard work and by adding more of the above you leave more room for your extra added features to not match the subjects and it takes away from your ability to capture resemblence.

So all in all I spent a good 18 hours on this piece, and surprisingly only went through three 0.7 leads. I am exceptionally proud of it and think it is truly lovely even with it's faults from lack of time.

Multiperson drawings have always been a challenge to me as it is so much work...and pressure to make sure all the faces not only come out good but in proportion to each other. This will have been not only my first 18 X 24 drawing, but my first time taking 10 different pictures and arranging and drawing them together like they had been drawn from the same picture.

Here is a look into my (growing) to-date collection of group shots:

A Wedding Shot of My Boss in Banff, Alberta

The last portrait I did to this extent was on 8.5 X 11 paper and I ambitiously drew it with pencil crayons, no preplanning and 2 hours before my client needed it, he had requested minimal detail and though in my opinion it turned out a bit sloppy with no time to polish every person was captured perfectly.

The Used

This was my first successfully finished group shot. I was 21 and at  work on the phones [at a call centre] and while I was talking I was doodling a page out of the magazine I was reading and somehow ended up with this portrait of the Used. It was drawn on scrap paper with a dull HB pencil. Just writing that now reminds me of how I got that pencil. My boyfriend at the time showed up at work one day and had brought me lunch, but instead of a lunch inside the bag, there was a bunch of sketchbooks, pencils and pencil crayons. I sure did love that boy.