A few of my bits and pieces...

June 30th, 2009, 3:35 pm

Hi everybody, I'm new to the forum, and relatively new to all things arty but I'm loving the learning curve when I get time to focus on it. I thought I'd post a few bits, constructive criticism much appreciated, please be kind to me these are my first pieces. The 'portraits' are painted in PS no filters or over-painting etc, just me experimenting with virtual paints and canvas. I really need to get around to taking the sketch portrait down since I scanned it badly with a doodle of my daughters' on the page behind it! LOL its bugged me for months and I still haven't dealt with it

http://jaycey.deviantart.com/gallery/


Anyway, Im really happy to find this forum and look forward to participating here.

[Belk Media Group]

July 8th, 2009, 2:38 pm

Nice, in fact very well done for someone who is new to all things artsy, especially on your shading. How new are you? Of course I could hand you out a list of criticisms but I won't, mainly because I don't have the time not because I am nice, lol. One thing I would like to say is, proportions, learn them and you will make great leaps in your natural progression. For instance, the width of a normal person mouth is from the center of the right eye to the center of the left eye. One more, the eyes are exactly in line with the top part of the ear that connect to the head. Did that make sense? Ok, just one more. From the top of the forehead to the bridge of the nose is the same distance from the bottom of the nose to the bottom of the chin.

Those proportions fit most humans on Earth. Of course there are exceptions outside of obvious deformities. If you ever looked at someone and said, "They look weird", but you couldn't quite put your finger on the problem, this will probably shed some light.

July 9th, 2009, 4:28 am

LOL pretty new, these are my first and only pieces done, the first one ever being the asian lady in black and white (natural beauty), I saw a picture of her in a magazine and she looked so calm she grabbed my attention. I first drew her in my child's crayons lol that was my entry level to art haha. When it came to it I found it hard to identify the exact ways in which her facial structure / shapes and proportions might portray her ethnicity, which is why I painted her in greyscale LOL. My thinking being I would have to concentrate on what I saw and not on skin tone to demonstrate this. When I painted it I was aiming for her ethnicity to be there but very subtle since I also wanted to portray the common features and expressions we can find beautiful in every person (hence I eventually settled on drawing her as a moon peering from the sky). I didn't quite achieve this and I always want to go back and redo it LOL. Likewise my daughter and the boy (la poirot), I loved the opportunity for facial expression because kids are great at it hehe, but again had to concentrate hard to show they are young in terms of development of facial structure. I seriously lack time, and so each piece has been done when I have a few days to commit to it...sporadic bursts months apart. I have no art background prior to that and so I'm very much in my first stages of trying and learning. Time is a major constraint for me unfortunately. Likewise I sporadically play in illustrator learning vector techniques and with graphite and carbon from time to time but these are literally doodles while I'm sat at the computer taking a phone call etc ...

I really appreciate the feedback and its great that you offered tips that were relevant to the things I was struggling with when I did these pieces. I do struggle to estimate proportions and distances between facial features and I am guilty of merely looking at what I see and merely using that as a guide rather than applying any knowledge of basics to guide me. Your explanation made perfect sense lol. I will look at my proportions and look for some tutorials to drill the message home to me hehe, thank you so much, and nice to meet you.