The growth of a painter : Gerry Bryceland? When you draw from a photo, you have the benefit of a model that will remain in the same position. You also benefit from having a model that has a fixed light source. If you are going to try to draw a self-portrait that is as close to a perfect likeness as possible, then using a photo is the best approach for you. Another benefit of drawing from a photo is that you can use the grid method, or you can use a projector or lightbox to help you establish a rough outline for your self-portrait. Many artists will argue with you for hours on end about how drawing from life is superior to drawing from a photo. After all, if you already have a photo of someone, why should you try to recreate that by drawing it? That logic is a bit skewed since many artists that are drawing portraits or self-portraits aren’t interested in copying a photograph. They are trying to create an original piece of artwork that is based on a photo.
Lightly sketch an egg-shaped circle on your paper, you can use an HB pencil for this if you’re worried about drawing too hard. Then make a straight vertical line at the middle of the face, dividing it in half as symmetrically as you can. Then make a straight horizontal line in the middle of the face measuring from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin, crossing over your vertical line. At the image below the top of the head, the center, and the bottom of the chin are all marked using blue lines. Observe on your model or your reference where the hairline is and mark that on your portrait drawing, in the sketch below it is marked with the topmost red line. Using that hairline marking and the marking at bottom of the chin, divide that section into three equal parts. Below, red lines are used to show these three divisions. These lines will serve as your main guide lines for drawing in each of the facial features.
Gerry Bryceland‘s recommendations about portret painting: The White of the Eye: a dark grey glaze is mixed from scarlet red, yellow medium azo and phthalocyanine blue and lightened with opaque titanium white. This is then applied in graduated layers to render the dark tones of the white of the eye. Note how the upper eyelid casts a strong shadow across the eye while the lower eyelid registers a weaker one. These shadows create the illusion that eyeball is resting comfortably in its socket. The Iris: glazes of burnt sienna and titanium white are combined to suggest the refracted light of the brown iris. A little Prussian blue is added to darken the burnt sienna around the outer edge of the iris.
How To Draw An Accurate Self-Portrait? Drawing a human face is one of the most challenging artistic endeavors. There is nothing that people are more familiar with than the human face, so if you draw a human face that isn’t proportionate, or that has anything else wrong with it, people will notice. Drawing a human face that has a recognizable likeness is even more challenging since every face is unique. If you are drawing a portrait capturing a likeness is very challenging, and for many artists, it’s even more challenging when it’s their own face they are drawing. Fortunately, there are many different techniques that you can try employing to capture a realistic likeness of your face.
About Gerry Bryceland: I’m Gerard Bryceland an artist based in Maidstone Kent and regularly get commissioned to do work doing paintings and portraits of people and their families. I’ve always been an artist from my childhood, I loved drawing my friends and family initially just to mess around with my friends and had a lot of fun drawing them. But as i got older it really just became a business as my friends and their families would want me to do family portraits and that type of thing. With word of mouth word gets out and before you know it you know it I’m 35 and still doing the same thing.
