Drawing Basics
Getting Started
Lines
Shapes
Bonus Content
Critique - Simplify Portrait from Observation
Lesson by
97K
Mark as Completed
It’s time for level 2 critiques…portraits!
I’ll be looking through your portrait submissions and giving advice and tips on how to improve on common mistakes.
Newest
Le De Abreu
22d
i confess that by the end of it i was a little bit out of patience haha since I don't have many graffiti pencils i decided to use a charcoal pencil to make the darkest value, but it didn't really blended in the area that i already had used graffiti. I had some problems minimizing the textures of the pencil and trying to make it more even, but it's fine for me honestly.

Justin Schiff
28d
From left to right these are my attempts.
The very first one is before I saw the demo/critique. The second and third are after demo and critique.
The second one is more of a thumbnail where I tried to be looser.
My proportions are all over the place I think, I like the value shapes the most in the third one, although the value range could be wider. I think I like the overall value shape unity of the 3rd one the most, i tried to focus on the bigger picture as per the "egg" stuff Proko mentioned.

Jaysen Batchelor
1mo
Hi, this is my second attempt at this assignment. I wanted to do it again after watching the demo. I also did a pencil version and a digital version. I think I executed much better this time around.

Steph McCourt
2mo
So this portrait was a bonus for me, as I am definitely more on the Level 1 track as far as my draftsmanship skills. But I took this as a challenge to work on my gouache skills in my sketchbook with a flat brush, so I got way in over my head!
First mistake was the block-in - my proportions were off and I thought I could just fix it in the gouache stage, but the head ended up being too short regardless. Next mistake was using zinc white instead of titanium white to mix these values. I ended up learning a valuable lesson in when to use which white. Another mistake was just not mixing enough paint in the first place, so I had to remake mixtures twice or three times. I also should have keyed the painting much lighter and just mixed just touches of the lamp black into the white rather than mixing white into black. At the end, I was just overworking everything, so I just threw on highlights and called it finished.
Overall, I knew this was going to be a shot in the dark, but I'm glad I got to practice gouache and working with simple blocks of color. The pear was good practice with pencil work, but since I felt like Level 2 was above my pay grade anyway, I'm glad I got some gouache practice in too!

sizerst
3mo
This was before seeing your demo. I see now that I could have simplified shapes much more. I learned that I need to use a sharper pencil as I lost a lot of my straight lines due to a dull tool.

cclevens01
3mo
Hi here's a drawing I did yesterday and today I add some light and shadow to give a 3d look, gladly receive some feedback.
1mo
Nice job! I like the cleanliness of the measurements and attention to the perspective of the forms. As for some feedback, it's very smooth shading, but it seems soft to the point where the light source isn't as apparent at first glance. This may also be in part due to the strong reflective light that it looks like it could be a second light source. Remember that with reflective light, it still appears within the shadows and is part of the shadow group, so it will be darker than anything on the side hit with direct light. It helps with rendering to first block in the separation of light and darks, then add in the half tones, in order to have clarity between the two main groups. Lastly, remember that these are 3D objects, so don't forget the plane indicating their width. Since we are looking slightly downwards on the cups, we will see the top ridge that indicates the width of the walls of the cups, even if they are thin. If the light source is hitting from above, these planes will most likely be the lightest in value. Hope this helps :)
ozolinevita
3mo
Hi! Here are my drawings of "simplify" made in the following order:
1. Pear
2. Mens portrait
3. Woman portrait
4. Raccoon :)
Would be happy for some feedback on assignment 1.
2mo
For #1, I'm impressed with the refinement and control of your shading (especially the raccoon whiskers :0 ), but the pear could use the simplification of values into shapes rather than soft shading-- #2-4 show a good understanding of this. Additionally, the true shadow only starts towards the edge of the right side in the drawing, whereas in the photo reference it starts closer to the center and even slightly left. Remember to capture the roundness of the form when both mapping out the proportions and delineating the shadow edge's curvature.
One thing I'd like to add is for #4--don't be swayed by the idea of the local color. Because the right side of the image is in the shadows, everything in that section will be darker. This includes the white patches, which will now be a value closer to the middle of the value scale rather than pure white.
Hope this helps! Keep up the good work :)
Show all replies (1)

walaa
3mo
I am level 1, but I wanted to try my hand at this too. I did one before watching the critique and this one is after watching the critique.

bodhik
4mo
Portrait after critiques! Any advice welcome!

so_
4mo
my first attempt at the portrait, this was based off of the ones i've seen here. i do know i need to improve my proportions and the way i shade my art, but i would gladly appreciate any extra feedback!

Eugene Kim
5mo
My final attempt on the portrait after watching the critique. I would appreciate any feedback!

Eugene Kim
5mo
This is my attempt after watching the demo. I'll try another one after watching the critique video.

cujovic
6mo
I can see now how I totally missed those shadows next to the mouth on the brighter side

cujovic
6mo
Thank you. I do agree that the lighter half tone is hard to spot. I wonder if a smoother paper would make it easier to work with the lighter tones.

Audrey S
6mo
very nice job! I would probably work on the value selection, as I have a hard time differentiating some of your light values. Looks like you've almost used 4 tones instead of 5?

Mike Hicks
6mo
My portraits, before, and after watching the critique video. The first one here, that fits on the page, is the 2nd attempt.

jutin0921
7mo
I can definitely see my own mistakes here, disproportions with the eyebrow bridge being too far and my lines look a little messy
Ian
7mo
Second attempt

Sean H
7mo
Portrait simplification I did after watching this critique video. It's a well known portrait of Audrey Hepburn so there's a good chance you've seen it before. In the end, it maybe wasn't the best choice as the lighting on her face is very soft but I think there were still some interesting shapes in there.
I'm glad I watched the whole video before finishing this as the example on toned paper gave me the idea to use a white pencil for two of the values. Previously, I was using the colour of the toned paper for the lightest value which meant I had to squeeze four pencil values under the paper's value, thus it was much harder to control and get good contrast. I think using white pencil went a lot better but I definitely need some practice with it.
Proportion wise, I've noticed I have the tendency to make faces too long. I tried to compensate by making the head bigger in the hair area but think I just ended up throwing off the positions of some of my shapes (such as the highlight on the ponytail). Definitely looking forward to hopefully learning some measuring techniques later in the course lol
Joshua Butler
2mo
This is amazing work

John Harper
7mo
Hey Sean, good try. Your proportions are off. You pinched Aubrey's mouth and stretched her nose. But all-in-all, this is a nice effort.
Show all replies (1)
Tim Millea
7mo
Day 6

Camilo Hurtado
7mo
Ok, so before I even saw the demo video I made my first attempt. I’ve started with a (admitetly not so quick) sketch in Procreate. I used it as a reference for the shading of the pencil drawing. Right at the middle of the process I’ve noticed my proportions were all wrong, and the second image is the result of that after shading.
The third drawing I made it after watching the demo video (which surprised me that Stan also did but much much faster and simpler), and took some of his solutions: I stoped looking at my sketch for reference and used more of the photo, I took much more time getting my proportions accurately, I corrected as I was drawing, and tried to make the difference of values much more noticeable.
After seeing the progress made between the two, the improvement feels so good 😌
The guy from BluishDot
7mo
I decided to give the level 2 exercises a try.
The first one is after watching the demo. The second one is after watching the level 2 critique video.
Both were very challenging but I also learned a lot.
Any feedback is welcome. Thank you!
Gift Cards
Gift card for art students to use on anything in the Proko store
About instructor
Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.