Class Assignment: Charcoal Self-Portrait

My assignment is due in two days.  Fortunately, I had the foresight to take a day off to give myself plenty of "last minute" time to complete my assignment.  Here's how my work progressed today:

After 1 hour, I had my facial features roughly laid out:

But something wasn't right with the eyes, nose and mouth.  I could see "me" in this drawing, but something wasn't quite right. 

6 hours later...it was me!!  Well, sorta.  Hey, with a facelift I could resemble this drawing...at least the mouth was more like mine.

Time to recheck my proportions, positioning, etc.  My nose isn't that long and thin and, after a little analysis, I realized that the eyes weren't quite right either.  The one of the left (my right eye...I'm looking at a mirror image) was proportioned differently from the one on the right (my left eye).  There is a slight difference between my eyes for real, but it isn't like this:

I realize what's wrong with the drawing...I resemble a Siamese cat.  I'm more like a Tabby ; )

Eye tweak 1 - I made the eye on the left closer to the width of the one on the right as well as increasing the height near the middle:

 

 

Eye tweak 2 - line refinement:

 

 

After 7 hours, I have tweaked the eyes and fixed my nose, this is where I stopped for the day:

 

 

 

It looks a lot more like me, but I still see that something isn't right.  I need to recheck the eyes again.

 

After taking a break and asking others what they see, I realize that the cheek on the right looks too concave.  That side of my face is shadowed, but I need to figure out how to indicate shadow without caving the cheek in.  I also realize that I need to remove the "apple" of my other cheek.  It was more appropriate earlier when I first started drawing with my mouth in a smile.  It looks too youthful.  Looking at the photo above, I realize that I need to revisit the neck area too.  It looks like I'm wearing a turtle neck...if only I were : )

 

One other thing I need to work on is the my hair.  After looking at these pictures, the hair looked pretty good at one point, but by the time I stopped, it looked terrible (boxy and fraid on the ends).  I have curly hair and I'm not sure how to render that.  I'll play around with it a little more tomorrow.

Charcoal Drawing in High Key

The assignment from last's weeks drawing class was to draw a still life in the High, Medium or Low key.  Key being a term which describes the value range (light to dark) of the work.  We were free to setup our own still life and given suggestions as to what items to setup up under what lighting conditions provide conditions which would provide us with the proper items and light conditions to create the setup for our chosen key.  The pumpkin I drew last week was definitely in the medium range, so I wanted to try something difference.  I chose a rabbit figure( (in off-white) a white egg on a white bed of cotton inside a white cup.  I was aiming for high key and my instructor confirmed that I made it.  What do you think?

18" x 24" - "Easter Bunny?" by Cindy Jackson Griffin

Charcoal Drawing

Value Drawing of a "Fairytale" Pumpkin

In my Fundamentals of Drawing class, we are doing value drawings with charcoal...a very new medium to me. I like it alot. For last week's assignment, we had to draw a still life of something organic in nature. Well, I'm learning that my successful completion of these assignments, i.e., without a high level of frustration, is highly dependent upon my choice of subject matter.  So, for this assignment, I chose a pumpkin. When I went to the store I saw the typical Jack-O-Lantern style pumpkins in bright orange and in a variety of shapes and sizes. As I looked at each, I thought, "How am I going to draw that? I see too much texture." After looking them over and rejecting all of them, I came across what were labeled as a "doll house" pumpkin or something like that. These beauties had such shiny, smooth exteriors in a deep rust color with some chalky looking white areas around the creases. And the creases, well, I couldn't ask for a more defined crease. I was definitely going to be able to find highlights and shadows to draw with these babies. So I bought one, took it home, set it up on a sheet in the corner of the kitchen with a photography light as my only light source...I wanted singular shadowing, I'm not up to more yet :) I did one sketch and was hooked.  The charcoal is so forgiving and workable.  I loved putting it on and wiping it off, putting more on and wiping more off, blending, erasing...oh, erasing...I love subtraction as a means of adding definition.

The drawing above is my finished drawing on 18 x 24 drawing paper (which started out as white. I was able to do this assignment much easier than the others. I'm not sure if it was the subject matter or the charcoal. I'll find out soon. I have another assignment in charcoal due next week. We'll see how it goes...BTW, the pumpkin, I found, is also called a "Fairytale Pumpkin". It comes from France where it is called  "Musque de Provence".