Recording my drawing progress with a digital camera

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Astronuc said:
WOW! Zooby. Those drawings are exceptional.

You need to do a showing.


"The Ghost Horse" has a great contrast.
Thanks for the compliment, Astro. I'm actually trying to work up enough drawings of these wilder kids, Ariel, Caleb, Eric, Tiffany, (and wait till you get a load of Violet), for a show with a theme.


hypatia said:
I really enjoy looking at your work. It just keeps getting better.
I'm glad you think so and I'm glad you like looking at it.

Ivan Seeking said:
Awesome work Zooby!
Thanks so much, Ivan.

You'll probably be worth a fortune when you're dead. :biggrin:
I know. And anyone reading this may feel free to forward me a dozen million or so that they can easily recover from my post-mortem estate.

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Here's a shot of Javaneh as a work in progress:

Two pencil portraits on a drawing table: a finished black-and-white drawing of a young woman resting her chin on her hand, beside a partly rendered face of eyes, nose and brow on grid paper, with pencils at right.


It had an unintended tromp l'oeil effect at this point: a 3-d face emerging from a flat page.
 
honestrosewater said:
I just remembered hearing on a show that when Matisse was bedridden, he would cut out pieces of colored paper and direct helpers on where to paste them on the canvas. That sounded like an interesting process, bedridden or not, and I just thought I'd mention it.
Somehow, I missed this earlier. My cousin is a talented artist and she wanders freely from realism to impressionism. When she was building her house, she accumulated paint-chip samples from hardware and paint stores, trying to come up with interesting color schemes. Looking at all those colors got her thinking about exploring with patches of pure color with no admixtures or textures, other than the shadows created by overlays. This is a rendition of a photo of her mother's flower garden. It looks like a jumble close-up, but with my near-sightedness and a few feet of separation, it is beautiful, with the poppies, the floppy daisies, etc.

Mosaic-style collage of a flower garden made from irregular patches of solid paint color, with red and orange poppies, white and yellow daisies, and blue and purple spikes among green foliage.


I have to say that as much as I like this type of work, Zooby's realistic portraits are out of this world. My pencil drawings are junk in comparison, and unfortunately, I gave away the few really nice colored drawings that I managed to produce with a fine-point rapidograph pen and watercolors. A friend of mine had an autistic son who loved wildlife, so I gave them to her.
 
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Portrait of Javaneh

Graphite pencil drawing of a young woman with dark shoulder-length hair, her left hand resting against her cheek, looking directly at the viewer with a slight smile.



As I said earlier, I spent more time on this portrait than I have on any other. This was mostly spent increasing the depth of the dark values in layers. Her face just demanded this kind of richness of tone. She puts me in mind of the actress Sophia Loren when she was younger.

She's 27, a student of acupuncture of all things, and comes into the cafe where I draw to study or use the wireless internet now and then. She is the most photogenic person I have ever drawn. I took about 100 shots of her and almost every one would have been a great reference photo for a drawing.

Her name, Javaneh (three syllables Jah-Vah-Neh), is either Persian or Hebrew. (Her family has roots in both places, and I forgot to ask about her name.)
 
Zooby, another fine picture! :approve:

Your pictures seem alive!
 
Nice work with the specks, gives it an organic look. Did you use a lead for that effect? If so, what was the technique? You made your gradients with a special surface, a towel maybe?
 
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Just out of curiosity, not pretentiousness:

can you draw from your imagination or do you generally need something to look at?

I can't draw at all, so you're 1up on me either way.
 
Astronuc said:
Zooby, another fine picture! :approve:

Your pictures seem alive!
Thanks Astro! Javaneh has a lot of life in her eyes, so it's no wonder.

Werg22 said:
Nice work with the specks, gives it an organic look. Did you use a lead for that effect? If so, what was the technique? You made your gradients with a special surface, a towel maybe?
The grainyness is not in the drawings. It is some unfortunate result of digital photography and the reflective quality of graphite. Graphite is difficult to photograph with any kind of photography, actually.



Pythagorean said:
Just out of curiosity, not pretentiousness:

can you draw from your imagination or do you generally need something to look at?

I can't draw at all, so you're 1up on me either way.
Well, since you asked, here are some faces I invented from scratch:

Pencil sketch of a woman with closed eyes and wavy hair blowing to one side, shaded in graphite on white paper.


Pencil sketch of a woman's face front-on with large eyes, full lips and long, wavy curly hair falling past her shoulders, drawn in soft graphite shading on white paper.


Pencil drawing of a woman's face and shoulders in a three-quarter-length portrait, with wavy shoulder-length hair swept back and a direct gaze.


Pencil sketch of a heavy-browed, bald male head in three-quarter view, with deep shading around the eyes, a prominent nose, and stubble on the chin and jaw.


Pencil sketch of a woman's face seen from the front, with straight bangs, long hair framing the face, and shaded eyes, nose and lips.


Pencil sketch of a woman's face and head viewed from the front, with long hair falling over her left shoulder to a tapered point, shaded with diagonal hatching.


These don't come out as finished or realistic looking, of course.
 
You seem to have a thing for lips, zooby! :bugeye: :wink:

- Warren
 
chroot said:
You seem to have a thing for lips, zooby! :bugeye: :wink:

- Warren

Yup. Who doesn't though?
 
zoobyshoe said:
[...quality art...]
These don't come out as finished or realistic looking, of course.

that's sweet. I've always wished I could do that with physics problems.
 
I see. I've never tried to take digital photographs of gray scale drawings. Though the effect of grain is appreciable... like I said I think it makes it look more organic.
 
Pythagorean said:
that's sweet. I've always wished I could do that with physics problems.
What? Do what with physics problems?

Werg22 said:
I see. I've never tried to take digital photographs of gray scale drawings. Though the effect of grain is appreciable... like I said I think it makes it look more organic.
It's not greyscale that is the problem but graphite, which is shiney. It's very hard to light it without getting a sheen somewhere. Evenly lit areas seem to photograph with this grainy effect.
 
zoobyshoe said:
What? Do what with physics problems?

draw from my imagination. It would expand visualization (especially for moment of Inertia problems). I would draw objects more than people, but I'd like to have that level of detail without needing the actual object.

Instead I resort to crappy diagrams, as if I had dissected the object all over my paper and coldly analyzed it's ugly innards, without really seeing the full physical potential of the object.
 
turbo-1 said:
Thanks for re-posting that, Zooby. She looks serene.
Yeah, she hadn't started classes at UCLA yet.
 
zoobyshoe said:
Yeah, she hadn't started classes at UCLA yet.

:smile::smile::smile:
so true.
I prolly look more like this these days.
http://www.indexstock.com/store/GetThumb.asp/ImageNum=438151&VOLID=806&gc=gc1&ss=1/Panic-438151.jpg
 
zoobyshoe said:
Black and white graphite drawing, close-up portrait of a young woman with dark shoulder-length hair resting her left hand against her cheek, with a slight closed-mouth smile and a signature in the lower right corner.




Her name, Javaneh (three syllables Jah-Vah-Neh), is either Persian or Hebrew. (Her family has roots in both places, and I forgot to ask about her name.)
Nice 1!:smile: Hope you are not cheating on me with her:devil::-p
Javaneh is persian as far as I know! It means sprout, bud!
 
Lisa! said:
Nice 1!:smile: Hope you are not cheating on me with her:devil::-p
Javaneh is persian as far as I know! It means sprout, bud!

Wow, that's a really lovely name, then. Thanks for the translation.

What can I say? I thought she was you, stalking me under a pseudonym.
 
Math Is Hard said:
Zooby, I think you should do a portrait of Lisa!
The only known picture of Lisa! is a nose. :-p
 
Math Is Hard said:
Zooby, I think you should do a portrait of Lisa!
(I think Javaneh IS Lisa!)
 
Recently Finished: Portrait of Tiffany

Graphite pencil portrait, in grayscale, of a young person with short wavy hair, wire-rimmed glasses worn low, and arms folded over a denim jacket with a round pin on the lapel.



(The photo I used as a reference and a shot of the work in progress are posted back in post #175 of this thread.)
 
Thank you for showing your work. I appreciate it very much.
 
Zoob, you are a true inspiration. I used to do some drawing long back(I even went for classes), then with studies and all I really didn't have time any more. Now I am seriously considering going back to my old hobby, once my exams get over that is :frown:

Your portrait of Tiffany is great and I like the level of detail you give, specifically the hair and shirt. Very nicely done.
Do you do only direct portraits, or can you draw from your imagination and memory? Do they come out equally as good? Personally, I find it very hard to do that.
And keep posting your pictures, they are a treat.
 
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This girls got great expression! I love it.
You did well with the texture of the Demin Jacket. I noticed in the O-Pic the dark under her eyes, and the flushed ear. You did get the eyes perfect, the ear looks more shadowed then flushed. Is it perhaps because its hard, if not impossible, to make something look flushed with shades of grey?
 
Zooby..its Enough..I think its time you tell us which secret software you use to extract sketches and thereby flattering chicks...:biggrin:
 
zoobyshoe said:
This was first posted in a separate thread last April. I'll repost it here to keep things collected together:

Graphite pencil portrait drawing of a woman with wavy blonde hair, looking directly at the viewer with a slight closed-mouth smile against a plain white background.


Portrait Of Math Is Hard By Zoobyshoe
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=163625

hmmm...i must say i didnt expect MiH to be so peaceful and calm[rightly said lovely serene face] going by the postings of MiH