Recording my drawing progress with a digital camera

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PlantyThingy Revisited

To refresh your memory, here's "PlantyThingy" as originally presented in post #61:

Colored pencil drawing of an abstract, plant-like form with flowing green, teal, orange, yellow and purple shapes spreading across a white background, mounted on a grey board.


Between then and now I've done more work on it:

Abstract colored pencil drawing of a stylized plant-like form with branching green and blue stems, flared orange and yellow petal shapes, and a pattern of overlapping scale-like marks on a pale blue and peach background.


This is common for me, to start a drawing, set it aside unfinished for a long time, then pick it up later and do a lot more work on it.
 
Two New Portraits

I've been doing more realistic drawing the past month or so. I've had good luck in getting some interesting people to pose for me. Christine and Caleb are two 18 year olds who hang around a coffee house I frequent. I wanted to draw Christine 'cause she's just plain pretty, and Caleb cause he has a dramatic Elvis/Beat Poet thing going on with his well cultivated image.



Christine:

Black and white pencil portrait of a young woman with dark, wavy shoulder-length hair, looking directly at the viewer with a neutral expression.


Caleb:

Pencil portrait drawing in grayscale of a young man with swept-back voluminous hair, looking off to the side against a plain light background, wearing a light shirt under a dark vest.
 
You're really very talented zoob, great drawings!
 
These are amazing Zoob! I really can't say any more for I'm speechless except i wish i found this thread earlier.
 
Evo said:
You're really very talented zoob, great drawings!

Thanks Evo. Your approbation is much appreciated.

Kurdt said:
These are amazing Zoob! I really can't say any more for I'm speechless except i wish i found this thread earlier.

I'm glad you like my stuff. Evo did me the honor of putting this thread in GD classics. I like to ressurect it now and then when I have new drawings to add.
 
Wow zoobyshoe these are absolutely amazing. I would not have guessed that Christine's picture was a drawing at first glace, the face looks way too real! Amazing job on both the portraits, I like the abstract work as well.

edit: Just looked through the whole thread, wow, you have talent. Very nice artwork! This is coming from someone who is hard to impress, too. :biggrin:
 
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dontdisturbmycircles said:
Wow zoobyshoe these are absolutely amazing. I would not have guessed that Christine's picture was a drawing at first glace, the face looks way too real!
This is becoming an issue. I posted an unfinished drawing on an art forum and some people recomended I not finish it because it might become too photographic. I've been getting better at finer and finer shading with no apparent lines or hatching but it ends up being counterproductive if people can mistake them for photos. This is probably only a problem when they are reproduced and shrunk for the web though. In person the particular reflective quality of graphite distinguishes it instantly from a photo, if there's any doubt.

Amazing job on both the portraits, I like the abstract work as well.

edit: Just looked through the whole thread, wow, you have talent. Very nice artwork! This is coming from someone who is hard to impress, too. :biggrin:
Thank you very much.
 
Wow this is the first time I've seen this thread. Those drawings are so amazing, you have incredible talent!
 
Hey, they look great, almost like photographs! Blah, and I thought I knew how to draw.. :-p
 
scorpa said:
Wow this is the first time I've seen this thread. Those drawings are so amazing, you have incredible talent!
Thank you very much scorpa.

radou said:
Hey, they look great, almost like photographs! Blah, and I thought I knew how to draw.. :-p
If you want to draw more realistically from photos look into the grid system:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=drawing+grid&btnG=Google+Search

Ivan Seeking said:
That is some great work, Zooby.
Hey, I'm really glad you like it Ivan.
 
You did a fantastic job capturing the personality of Caleb. Both are a great defining the freshness of their age.
 
hypatia said:
You did a fantastic job capturing the personality of Caleb. Both are a great defining the freshness of their age.

Caleb doesn't like the drawing. The breeze messed his hair up a bit and he complained that I should have told him and let him recomb it before snapping the picture. His girlfriend loves it, though, and that's better tham him liking it.

Christine was camera shy and I took, literally, 103 shots of her waiting for her to relax. We both agreed this bold gaze was the best of them. She was nervous about how I'd draw her, but when she saw it she stared at it for about a minute and then pronounced, imperiously, "I approve!"
 
Two New Portraits

Two more denizens of the above mentioned cafe:

"je suis perdue": Portrait of Ariel

Realistic charcoal or graphite portrait of a young woman with shoulder-length wavy dark hair, looking directly at the viewer, with handwritten text reading "je suis perdue" beside her face.


Portrait of Eric:

Black and white pencil drawing portrait of a bearded man with long dreadlocks, wearing a light t-shirt under a dark jacket, facing the viewer.
 
This one is an attempt at the device known as "repoussoir" : "a figure or object in the extreme foreground: used as a contrast and to increase the illusion of depth."

Graphite pencil drawing of a woman's face and shoulders in dark hair, looking sideways with wide eyes, with a small horse running across a pale background at upper right.


I titled it "The Ghost Horse" but someone who knows horses said the "horse" is probably actually a pony. That's OK, I was just experimenting. If I did it over I'd hunt up a good shot of an actual horse and probably retitle it "The Night Mare"
 
Close-up grayscale pencil drawing of a pair of lips with shading that gives the upper and lower lip volume and texture.


Closeup of a drawing I did of a young lady named Javaneh. I often spend a lot of extra time on the lips.
 
Master pieces as ever. I like the guys dreads and that mouth close up is stunning.
 
Kurdt said:
Master pieces as ever. I like the guys dreads and that mouth close up is stunning.

Thank you so much, Kurdt. Since you like her mouth, I'll show you her eye:

Close-up graphite pencil drawing of a human eye with eyelashes, upper eyelid crease and eyebrow, shading in grey tones; a faint reflection of a window appears in the pupil.
 
Zooby, I will never take up a pencil again, you've outdone me.
 
zoobyshoe said:
Thank you so much, Kurdt. Since you like her mouth, I'll show you her eye:

Close-up graphite pencil drawing of a human eye with a detailed iris, eyelashes, and upper eyelid crease, shaded in grayscale to look photorealistic.
I don't know if it's my screen, but damn! That looks real!
 
Kurdt said:
That is exceptional! I can't say more.
Thank you very much, Kurdt, I appreciate it.

Evo said:
Zooby, I will never take up a pencil again, you've outdone me.
I'll have to take your word for it since you've never show us your stuff. (I'm very curious.) But thanks!

morphism said:
I don't know if it's my screen, but damn! That looks real!
Uncounted hours of work with a magnifying glass and a sharp pencil. Working from a reference photograph, of course. I spent more time on this drawing than I ever have on any other. This is a girl (woman, I suppose, she's 27) who comes into the cafe I frequent to study. She saw me working on another drawing (Christine) and stopped to compliment it. I took one look at her and said "You're next". She's very lovely. She was flattered and agreed to let me take a bunch of photos of her for the drawing.
 
Currently working on:

Tiffany, photograph.

Photograph of a young person with wavy brown hair and red-framed glasses, wearing a light denim jacket and a dark cord necklace with a green pendant, resting arms folded on a table in a restaurant.


Tiffany, drawing in progress:

Pencil drawing in progress on grid paper of a young woman with short wavy hair and wire-rimmed glasses, head tilted, wearing a collared shirt; face is finished while the clothing is only lightly sketched.
 
Wow, Zooby, those drawings look so realistic, I thought they were black and white photographs at first! (Well, except the one with the horse, which is more obviously a drawing...I'd say from the way it's kicking up it's heels, it's a frisky colt, too young to say if it's a horse or pony. :smile:) Your artistic ability is truly impressive.
 
How do you shade the skin? Whatever technique you use, it appears as if the shading follows the fine sorts of wrinkles and crevices that you'd find in a real person's skin if you looked close enough. It's more apparent in the couple of close ups you posted.
 
Moonbear said:
Wow, Zooby, those drawings look so realistic, I thought they were black and white photographs at first! (Well, except the one with the horse, which is more obviously a drawing...I'd say from the way it's kicking up it's heels, it's a frisky colt, too young to say if it's a horse or pony. :smile:) Your artistic ability is truly impressive.
Hey, thanks Moonbear.
hypnagogue said:
How do you shade the skin? Whatever technique you use, it appears as if the shading follows the fine sorts of wrinkles and crevices that you'd find in a real person's skin if you looked close enough. It's more apparent in the couple of close ups you posted.
It's a lucky accident. I was attempting to follow the "grain" of skin as I laid down the skin tone. You never get it completely smooth or at the right value the first time and to adjust it I went over it a couple times with lines whose angle was a few degrees different. This spontaneously created an unplanned "pore" texture. It comes off as some kind of tedious work, but was a total accident. No such pore texture really shows in the reference photo:
Close-up graphite pencil drawing of closed lips with soft grey shading and fine streaked texture on the lower lip, showing the surface of the skin.

Drawing
Black and white close-up photograph of a pair of lips with fine skin texture around them, cropped at the nose and chin.

Photograph
 
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WOW! Zooby. Those drawings are exceptional.

You need to do a showing.


"The Ghost Horse" has a great contrast.
 
I really enjoy looking at your work. It just keeps getting better.
 
Awesome work Zooby!

You'll probably be worth a fortune when you're dead. :biggrin: