Hi Tom, you got this! It is hard to draw human head, even harder is to paint it. Painting is a diffrent approach to from, called mass drawing, if you want to learn more about this from academic perspective I reccomend book "The Practice and Science of Drawing" by Harold Speed. As for your questions, which tool to use, it all comes with practice and approach you choose. I like to use soft brush to build cylidrical forms of the head, some specific round brush to add more planar feel, a chalk brush to add form, a soft noise to suggest skin texture. Keep on going, you have youe system to learn, that's a good thing, have fun, don;t count the hours at the beginning, you will make mistakes, learn from them, don't be negative about your work, it will lead you nowhere, accepting the outcome is part of the process. Having planes mapped out is good, but as mass drawing is about simplification, use them as guides, at the same time don't try to include every in a portrait, it will lead to overcomplicated partrait. Painting is about how you can manage information within 5 values and hue shift. Keep it up!

Turning head study into an actual painting

Künstlernotiz:

I’m continuing with my skull drawing. Actually, it’s kind of funny. You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to reach the point where I could post this image. It’s not that I’ve been drawing only skulls all this time. At some point, I saw a nice drawing of a horse. I find horses amazing creatures, so I started drawing them. I studied their skulls and anatomy and drew a horse. It took quite an intense amount of focus. Because I’m a man with other responsibilities, my daily drawing sessions couldn’t always happen on my own terms, which is extremely hard. Discipline and dedication are simply not enough! On top of that, I seemed to have forgotten how to draw hands, which I had been practising just before spending a month on horses. I started to worry that I would always forget the knowledge and thinking I had developed while drawing. So I decided to change tactics. I draw, take notes, and create a whole process. I write it down the way books explain things, so I’m creating my own art book. After practising only hands for months, I can refresh my horse drawing by going back to the horse chapter in my “book.” I’m starting to see the benefits and make progress. By now, I have a huge collection of documented progress and skills! Well, the same thing is happening with the skull. I started a year ago after seeing people doing caricatures and character designs. I wanted to do that too. Then I saw somebody post a very crisp planar representation of a skull, and I wanted to do that too. I studied and drew around my bike commute to work or while travelling to the dentist by train. Bit by bit, I was able to push it further. Eventually, I could at least draw a kind of robot head resembling a human face. Then I left it for a few months, came back to it, and pushed it further again, until I reached the point where I could post this. And I’m still nowhere near where I want to be. I realised that I don’t know anything about painting techniques. When should I use smudge? When should I use an oil or bristle brush? A wet brush? Dry bristles? What is actually bristle? Is not the same cast brush?! , and what makes one brush different from another? I don’t want to end up doing random things. Whenever I do something, I don’t care about the result as much as I care about learning something new and developing a workflow that works for me. Now I’m stuck with painting. Instead of editing my planar work, I used it as a map, randomly picked a brush without knowing how to use it, and just painted. This is where I ended up. I had a little bit of fun i learnt a tiny bit- not happy with that. Because this time I was focus on outcome. So I wasted lots of time! But i think in a sense it was progressing a bit, but I’m still not in control, and it isn’t expressive at all! I am starting to believe I may not end up as a freelance artist but more as an educator and teach through my work. Any help at this stage will be very helpful. Thanks

Kommentare 1

@wojciechbajorvor 2 Wochen

Hi Tom, you got this! It is hard to draw human head, even harder is to paint it. Painting is a diffrent approach to from, called mass drawing, if you want to learn more about this from academic perspective I reccomend book "The Practice and Science of Drawing" by Harold Speed. As for your questions, which tool to use, it all comes with practice and approach you choose. I like to use soft brush to build cylidrical forms of the head, some specific round brush to add more planar feel, a chalk brush to add form, a soft noise to suggest skin texture. Keep on going, you have youe system to learn, that's a good thing, have fun, don;t count the hours at the beginning, you will make mistakes, learn from them, don't be negative about your work, it will lead you nowhere, accepting the outcome is part of the process. Having planes mapped out is good, but as mass drawing is about simplification, use them as guides, at the same time don't try to include every in a portrait, it will lead to overcomplicated partrait. Painting is about how you can manage information within 5 values and hue shift. Keep it up!