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Daniel Lykke
2mo
Here is my assignments that I have been working on the last week. I had a hard time getting the proportions right, and I’m still working on getting the hair more mat instead of glossy but other than that I’m pretty happy about this. What do you guys think? Do you have any suggestions about what I should do to improve it?



Clinton Ibe
2mo
Wow I love ❤ your drawing. What pencils did you use (2B, 4B, HB, 3H)
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Shelvs Fleurima
2mo
On the last assignment or the portrait class, be mindful of his jaw structure it’s not as sharp as you sketched it. You did a fantastic job by the way
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Adam Wiebner
2mo
Great set of portrait sketches. It looks like these were all in a small sketchbook, so perhaps it may be easier to do such rendering when you work larger size. The strength here i perceive is rendering of hair, the old man’s beard looks awesome and his eyes as well look really good. As you mentioned, the opportunity to get better on each of drawings is accuracy of proportions, and to do that perhaps you can get a bit scientific. To improve proportions you need some method to give yourself specific feedback to practice. With digital tools drop opacity of scan of sketch and overlay it with photo reference and it will reveal proportions in drawing which diverge from photo. Or just use a ruler to check relative key point of features and skulls of drawing versus photo reference. As a challenge to really reveal proportions accuracy, take 20 plus measurements like width of eye, length of forehead, length of nose, and find your tendencies of making a feature or skull section a little too big or little too small. Last i’m not sure if you are using an underdrawing method or not, but if not perhaps consider exploring a constructive approach to building proportions of skull and locating features through Loomis or Reilly method. I hope that helps.
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Marco Sordi
3mo
2022/5/20. Good morning everybody. Last night I arrived at the atelier, I prepared the easel and put the work I had started two weeks ago on it. I watched it for a couple of seconds. It was all wrong. I had to delete it and do it all over again. In just three hours this is all I could do…
Thanks.

Marco Sordi
3mo
2022/5/8. Good morning everybody. Here’s my warming up exercise. I usually have 30 mins warming up before jumping in to regular practice (anatomy, drawing, painting and digital illustration). Recently I alternate portrait, mannequinization and hand sketches. In 30 mins I know I can’t make a perfect work but I’m using this 30 mins warming up exercise in order to develop an instinctive approach to the drawing and speed up the process. The goal is to find and recreate the personality of the reference and deliver the main characteristic of the character. Any advice or suggestions about it is welcome. Thanks.


Marco Sordi
4mo
2022/4/24. Hi everybody. Introducing Mr. Agrippa👍🏼
Thanks.

Marco Sordi
4mo
2022/4/15. Good morning everybody. Here's my 30 mins warming up exercise & and my first expressions sheet ever... I need to practice much more... Thanks.

Marco Sordi
5mo
2022/3/23. Good morning everybody. Here’s my 30 mins warming up exercise. Eyes aren't perfectly aligned and the ear looks a little bit off. Thanks and have a good day.


Marco Sordi
5mo
2022/3/9. Good morning everybody. Here’s my 30 minutes warming up exercise. Thanks.


Marco Sordi
6mo
2022/2/3. Good evening everybody. Here’s my latest portrait. Charcoal on MBM paper. Thanks.

gothamite
6mo
Tried drawing ben affleck from the town poster. Dunno, doesn't look like him a lot, tho.

Ernesto Palma
6mo
Hey there! If anything, it´s great practice for tonal value control. And you had fun drawing a subject you like, did you not? So take it as fun practice. If you can take a general posed Loomis head, or skull in the same position, you can use this drawing to identify what you can improve. This makes it more like deliberate practice. When you are up to it, try making the portrait again but focus on fixing the areas of improvement first, such as the general proportions, angles of alignment and so on. Great effort!!!
Account deleted
6mo
Hi gothamite, a very nice likeness. You might consider doing a trace-over of Riley rhythms to correct some of the misalignments? In particular, the eyes look a bit off. But all in alll, a very nice portrait :-)
Cheers!
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missinglee
6mo
I wasn't familiar with this poster, but before I read your comment I could see that it was Ben Affleck - so the resemblance is there. The main thing I noticed is that the shadow on his nose is a lot sharper than the photo, so it makes his nose look more pinched. I feel like his right eye should be slightly larger too, but generally the proportions and placement of the rest of his features look to be pretty good to me
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Marco Sordi
6mo
2022/1/24. Good morning everybody. Here’s my 30 mins warming up exercise. Thanks


gothamite
7mo
So I tried drawing dan reynolds. I'm pretty happy with it.....except it doesn't look like him at all. Critique would be appreciated.


Account deleted
7mo
Well, I don't know who Mr. Reynolds is but I think you have captured a fair likeness. Nice work!
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Israel Gelman
9mo
Did this portrait yesterday, I think it has a decent likeness, there's something wrong with the expression and I can't quite place it, I think the forehead is taller, how can I improve this, or should I leave it alone?


Stefani Isajlovska
9mo
I think his forehead is taller as you said and also it looks like the cheeks are fatter so you should have more clean lines in the beard where the cheeks are, also the wrinkle on the eyebrow should be more down under the eyebrow I think (as I see it the left one) because I think it looks like he's looking more on the left that way (as I see it) and there should be more visible highlights. Mostly his face just needs to be longer honestly but overall it's pretty great good job! I'm still a beginner so I'm sorry if it's not very accurate
T.J. Veith
9mo
values are a bit skewed and measurements could be adjusted for accuracy and likeness. good job, just needs more time in the "block in" stage getting things where they need to be. squinting your eyes when rendering values can help you with representing form as well... Same tips that have helped me improve my portraits. great work keep it up
Israel Gelman
9mo
Thanks for feedback
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Marco Sordi
9mo
2021/11/5. Hi everyone. Here's my latest "portrait". Thanks for any advice. Have a good weekend.


Gordon McNutt
9mo
The light areas of your darks are too light. If you added more halftones on the light side you could bring out the highlights which would make it look even better. For proportions I think that jaw angle should have been pushed further left, making that right plane of the face a little bigger, if you want to be closer to the reference (the face looks a bit "crowded"). Nice drawing, though, nothing to be ashamed of IMHO.
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Marco Sordi
9mo
2021/10/31. Good morning everyone. Here is my 30 min warm-up exercise. I finished in 28 min. I tried to draw the subject focusing on the shadows and the negative spaces between them trying to limit the use of lines as much as possible. The result is not so accurate but I am happy to have experimented with a different approach. Thank you and good day.


Huba Hevele
9mo
https://youtu.be/vj5lf43zzFc - Brian Knox is a Watts Atelir instructor and this video of him demonstrating is really helpful for constructing and mapping heads.
Hope you finde it helpful as well.
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Roberto C
10mo
Howdy, been playing around with charcoal in Procreate. I'm trying to do one every day. Would love to know what you think.


Roberto C
9mo
Here’s what I’ve been up to. I’m really loving the charcoal brushes in Procreate.






Roberto C
10mo
Thank you! yes it's all procreate default brushes.
S. Martin
10mo
Its all digital? Flawless!
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Nicole Lee
10mo
Hello everyone,
Below are my latest drawings. I have been focusing on improving the likeness of portraits and shading techniques. I feel like I have made some progress since last posts but definitely still lots to learn. Would love to get your opinions on where I can improve. Many thanks :)




10mo
Hi @Nicole Lee, I think these are really nice! I really like the textures in the forehead on the first one and the line quality in the second one is very elegant.
I'll do my best to help you further:
You've have been working a lot on shading, and I can tell that you're improving. I think it's about time you take a shading course. Your drawings are very good, and you understand much about shading. However I feel like there are som holes in your foundation, that need to be filled in order to push you to the next level. The area I see need most improvement is value control. Stan talks some about values, but it wasn't thorough enough for me. Also Stan's shading is quite stylized, with a strong core shadow and strong reflected light. His main intention doesn't seem to be copying what you see exactly. For me learning to capture the value relationships I see was a great way to develop my value control. And now that I have that I can start to stylize them and do that with confidence. I think the control has to come first
The course I took on shading was Dorian Iten's Shading Course https://www.theshadingcourse.com
Great explanations, great assignments and affordable. I'm sure that there're plenty of good resources online about shading, but Dorian's course is the one I would recommend
I hope this was helpful :) Keep up the good work!
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Jule Hollstein
11mo
After watching the demo I attempted my own drawing so I can compare it. I would still very much appreciate any feedback :)

Ivo Gouglev
8mo
Beautiful drawing! Just that there is too much value on the shoulder and it draws the attention away from the face and makes it look a little pale.
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Nicole Lee
11mo
Hi @Jule Hollstein , great drawing! Your work has a great likeness to Nicolai and good shading that separates light from shadow areas. Below are a few suggestions of where the drawing can further be improved:
- proportion: the eye on the left hand side should be smaller as it's away from us at three-quarter view.
- shading: the shading transition can be softer on the eye bags, lips, and the cheek core shadows.
- areas of hair in the shadow should be darker as it's in the same plane as the cheek that's in the shadow (refer to Proko's drawing)
- area of the neck right below the head should be much darker as it's facing away from light and the head casts a shadow on it
Hope that helps!
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simeongoa
11mo
A wonderful piece. Well done! Keep going.
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JaeHyun Yu
11mo
It's my best. i know my drawing doesn't match with original Nicolai...But if you give helpful critics for my drawing and how to advance my skill, i will try to hard. Thanks!! and with my 1710 2B and Arches Drawing pad, i can't express subtle value change and can't erase clearly...It's due to my poor skill? time solve that all problem? help me!!


Kensei Tron
11mo
What I immediately notice from your portrait attempt is how your features do not align correctly in perspective. I would recommend you to continue drawing Loomis Heads and keep in mind the 3D forms of the face. Pay close attention to how the contours and measurements are parallel in relation to space and form. Use the 3D model as a reference. Before jumping into shading and details, the construction and foundations that make up the face are the most important to get right first. If the measurements and perspective are wrong, everything else after will also look incorrect.
As for shading and getting smooth transitions in gradations I would recommend Smooth Newsprint and Charcoal, however, what matters at the end of the day is how you use the materials given to you and making the most out of what you have. Your shading is quite good! Don't give up and continue to reduce the number of mistakes you make each time.
Take the time to measure everything diligently, once you think it matches, you can start to jump into finer details and shading. Good luck.



Nicole Lee
11mo
Hello everyone, I have been practicing quick sketches due to limited amount of time I get to practice drawing lately. Below is my sketch from today. It would really be greatly appreciated if anyone could provide critics and feedback on where to improve. Thank you in advance!


João Bogo
11mo
Hey, Nicole.
You did a good job in most of this assignment. However, there's a few proportional mistakes: the eyes are too big, nose and ear are to small and the mouth is the wrong shape. You also drew a more idealized version of him. Notice that in the reference the bottom thirds of his face are bigger than his forehead. If you did that on purpose, that's ok, if not just be aware of it.
Since we're looking at a profile, so the features gonna be smaller than in front view. Also the shape will change. Compare how much white of the eye you're seeing in the reference and how much you drew, compare how much you're seeing of the outer side of his mouth and how much you drew.
There's a phenomenon that you should be aware. We have a tendency to draw everything straighter than we see. That means drawing longer axis on foreshortened limbs or force full shapes even when only see part of the feature. We do that because we're trying to match our symbolic representations of stuff. But, as we practice it's important to consciously doing an effort to draw what we really see and get away of what we think we see.
The value arrangement lacks contrast. Looking at the forehead, I see that you understand the forms and you're doing a good job representing the lighter values. The problem is you're not going dark enough in the shadows, and the transition from light to dark should be softer. Practice the 2-value phase of the drawing and make sure that your ligher shadow halftone is darker than your lighter light half-tone.
Finally you exaggerated the double curve on the hair in the front of the face.. It exists, but it's not that much. Try drawing the rhythm the hair makes from the top of the forehead to behind the ear. It serves as a natural cross contour. Then you design the second curve but accordingly.
I would like to give you a few tips on how to study and practice when you have limited time. But problem is there's a lot different practices that may be really effective or useless to you depending on where do you want to take your art. So, Would you mind to tell me more about what do you want to achieve in art? Are you studying just portraits right now or figure drawing, anatomy...and if you're just doing one sketch for each one subject or one for all? Is there any difficulty you constantly experience while practicing?
Best Regards
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Atharva Lotake
1yr
Hello everyone! This is my submission for the Nicolai assignment. What do you guys think about the piece. Please let me know. Thank you to anyone who takes the time to help me out! Have a good day!

jdn
1yr
very nice.
looks just like it. so yeah great job & love. 🤗
1yr
Hey Atharva, this is a really nice drawing. You did a really solid job on this. You definitely got a likeness, and it's reading in 3d space really well.
What I would say is a bit of a nit pick. The first thing is the mouth looks like it's slightly off center from the nose, which has the effect of making it look a bit flat.
The biggest thing though are the values and edges. It feels like the mid tone you've put across the right side of his face (his right) is too dark. This makes your drawing look messy, and it takes my attention away from the focal points.
Some of your edges, specifically on the bottom lip and nose are a bit messy. I think if you spent some time cleaning up those shadow shapes and edges, it would do a lot to fix the drawing.
I'd recommend looking at @Stephen Bauman's stuff. He does a really fantastic job organizing the shapes/ values in a drawing. To me it feels like you're at the stage where your drawings are really accurate, and have some style, but your dexterity isn't quite caught up with your hand. I think he'd be able to help a bit with that.
Anyways, hope this helps. Great job, and keep up the good work.
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Richard Gruber
1yr
I'm just a beginner, so you are much more advanced than me. I think this looks great. You are very good at eyes. (I also like the drawings of Morgan and Yoni that you posted.) The main criticism that jumps out at me is with the shading of the background. To me, the background is too choppy and stringy. It has too much of its own texture and is competing with the rest of the drawing. Sometimes, at a quick glance the background even looks like long stringy hair. I think it would look better if it were a smooth, blended gradient that doesn't call attention to itself.
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Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.