Saturday 30 October 2010


Eva Mendes having a bad hair day?

5 comments:

  1. This is awesome man. I mean all of your pictures are amazing. I just started to learn to draw and when searching for a pic to draw I decided to try to replicate this. (Semi-unsuccessfully). None the less, beautiful work man, any tips on learning to draw?

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  2. Thanks very much for the compliments Neal!
    The thing that can be difficult about learning to draw is learning to be self-critical without letting yourself get down about it. So you're always looking at your work, spotting things that are wrong, and doing your best to improve it next time.
    I'd say, when I draw from a photo for example, I usually have an idea in my head of what it is I like about the picture, and I try to make this unspecified thing shine through as I draw. So that's the vague bit, everything else is down to practice.

    Try to spot big shapes in the image - for example in this Eva Mendes pic, there's a big block for the head, one for the torso and longer rectangles for the arms. If you can position these correctly, then it's just a case of refining them down. To position them correctly, you need to be able to see the "negative space" properly - this is the space between the objects - and make the negative space on your drawing look the same.

    Then to refine your drawing, the biggest tip I could mention is that you should learn to forget what it is that you're drawing and instead focus on what the shapes and lines actually are (I don't mean stop looking at your reference as you draw!). If you've heard about drawing teachers making their students draw things upside-down and in grids when they start, this is so that your brain doesn't make any assumptions about what you're looking at; this is probably one of the most important things to get the hang of I'd say.

    Good luck!

    Oh also, don't worry about speed. It's more important to be accurate! If you're doing it right you should find a picture like Eva Mendes here taking several hours - the tiniest mistakes will make faces look wrong! Faces are probably the hardest things in the whole world to draw!

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  3. I posted the end results, I actually was happy with the picture minus the face, expressions are really difficult to capture. It's not in the same league as yours but for only have been drawing for a few weeks I try not to be too critical. http://covertlydebonair.blogspot.com/ if you want to check it out. I actually know what you mean, I went to a figure drawing class and I think the picture that came out best was the "odd" pose because I wasn't trying to draw what it "should" look like.

    Thank you so much for the advice! Keep up the excellent work man!

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  4. Great, keep practising and you'll get there! I'm very guilty of slacking off, so thanks for your comments which have given me some fresh motivation.
    Good luck.

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  5. Any time man, I'll be following along. I saw it had been a while since you posted, wasn't sure if you'd reply back. But none the less, my compliments on your work, have a great new year!

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