Natasha’s Applying NMA Studies to 100 Portraits

[Natasha]

I started this challenge a while ago but didn’t think to post it here. Not sure why. I have noticed surprising improvements after dabbling in several of the courses here (I have yet to finish one though…haha). Here’s my first one, and I’m embarrassed by it but also excited to see what things will look like after 100 days.

My Goals:

• Improve my understanding of the subtler shifts of form
• Not be afraid of dark values
• Improve my knowledge of anatomy.
• Experiment

[Natasha]

Since I’m a bit behind in posting, I’m doubling up. Interestingly, I had the same goal on these two: to simplify the strokes needed to describe the form. The first one worked out well, but we might as well call it a happy accident because I could not repeat it on the second portrait.

[kat]

I love your portrait of the bearded man! To me it has a cool, spontaneous energy, all the while being very structured and intentional. I would have a really hard time with an angle like the second one.

[erikdennes]

These are great!  Welcome to the challenge.  Can’t wait to see more work, and watch you improve.

[Natasha]

@kat. . . spontaneous is exactly the right word! I think the muses were moving that evening because I can’t quite get back that effortlessness. I’m purposely tackling the hard angles (gulp!) and the study of the skull by Iliya Mirochnik has really helped.

 

@erikdennes thanks so much. I appreciate it.

[Natasha]

I actually had to grab No. 4 from my Instagram. I guess because I disliked it so much, I deleted it from all other locations. I wasn’t trying very hard.

 

And No. 5. . . Opposite story here: I was trying hard but still struggling to turn the edge of the face in shadow.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Natasha.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Natasha.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Natasha.

[Natasha]

 

No 6. Great study for the planes of the head. I started in graphite which is my comfort zone, but I switched to charcoal because I couldn’t get the darks dark enough. Did I mention that I hate charcoal?

 

[Natasha]

NO. 7.What started as a rough-in became the final piece. The original photo had a lot of shadows that distorted the form so I edited them out. I thought about taking the drawing further but I really liked the compressed values.

[Natasha]

At this rate, it’s going to take forever to get you all caught up to where I’m at in the 100-day portrait challenge (I’m at number 40-something) so I’m posting the next three: NO 8, 9, and 10. I don’t remember much about them except that I was just trying to get them done quickly. Looking back, from the perspective of what I’ve been learning especially from the Russian figure drawing course, I should have been paying closer attention to the supraclavicular fossa (my new favorite word) and the zygomatic process among others.

[Natasha]

Began to really reach into cross-hatching after beginning the Russian figure drawing course. I, of course, hate this portrait.

[Natasha]

Finally, something is clicking. While working on this sketch, I was also working on Iliya’s planes of the head and something is starting to sink in! Combined with the cross-hatching, I really like how this is shaping up.

[theokatzman45]

These are so amazing! I envy your crosshatching skills!

[erikdennes]

Killer!

[Natasha]

Thanks @Mattias1612 and @erikdennes! I think some of the lessons are starting to sink in! LOL

[Natasha]

NO 13, 14, and 15. One of my goals was to try new things. So this is my first foray into pen and it is soooooo unforgiving! Once done it’s for good. Bleh. But you can see each one getting progressively better. I also switched to a pen I could control better on the last one and it made all the difference.

But dang, I’d really like to be able to subtract once and a while.

[Author]

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