Face drawing is almost done

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Almost done with this drawing. Just need more hair. Maybe I should start drawing bald headed people, because it’s a pain sketching the hair.

Time to start thinking about my next drawing. I’m considering a sexy train conductor as someone here has suggested=).

Speaking of sexy woman, I have been watching the original Star Trek series while I am on the treadmill. And man, those woman there are very sexy. I know it is old news but I have never really watched all of the episodes, so I’ve missed out on a lot of those woman. It is rather refreshing to see woman with curves and not the starving plastic ladies like the ones on the covers of Vogue magazines these days. So yeah, sooner or later, I will do a series of drawings dedicated to the women of Star Trek!

Drawing the Left Side First

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In my college years in Cal State LA, one of the most memorable art classes was my life drawing class. Other than being able to stare at nude woman for a prolonged period of time, it really is one of the best courses you can take. No matter what your skill level is, the practice of drawing from nude models is a priceless exercise in my opinion. You’re never too good or too old for it.

But anyhow, the point I wanted to make here was that one thing that my life drawing teacher taught me was to draw the left side first. It’s not rocket science as to the reasons why, if you’re right handed, you can see what you have already drawn. If you’re left handed, you would start on the right side first. I’m not saying to draw completely one side first with a clean dividing line, but just as a start. I have started every drawing this way since that lesson.

I am right-handed. Here’s a drawing that I have just started. As you can see, especially with faces, it really helps to start on the left first. I can almost remember what he told me exactly on drawing the left side first, “…even if you have other ways of drawing, just try it.” I did and I never looked back.

Woman in Pond Painting – Why it sucks

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Here is another old painting that I did many years ago. I thought I show this one because I’ve learned a great lesson after doing this painting. In the end, the painting looks very ‘digital’ and feels dead. That’s because I have used a lot of layers in Photoshop to paint this. All the elements were on separate layers and as a result, all the edges where very crisp and clean. I should have done another pass where I blend in all the elements so they don’t feel detached from each other. I suppose another few hours of painting would have fixed it. But there is another issue with using lots of layers in Photoshop to paint.

A funny thing happens to me when I use too many layers in Photoshop, and that is I become very tentative in the painting process. I will see certain things that bothers me as I am painting, but I can’t immediately fix it because I need to switch to that layer where that elements is in first. It might seem like a small extra step, but repeat that throughout your painting process and you will quickly become bogged down. It totally destroys the flow. I don’t know how many other artist feels that way too, but it definitely creates a lot of anxiety for me in the process.

I’ve placed this painting in my Make a Print section. You can download it at full resolution and see what I mean by the crisp edges. Even though I did went in and blended it a little before this post, you can see that it still needs a lot of work to make it feel ‘natural.’

Lady Samurai

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I was digging through my archives to find paintings to post here and came along with this painting that caught my eye. It’s been years since I’ve looked at this. And I really like it after all these times. This was probably the only digital painting that I’ve done where I started with a pencil drawing that was almost fully rendered. I suppose that is the correct way of doing it, but I get a little too anxious most of the time and jump straight into Photoshop after a simple sketch. The pencil shading came out well and I think it transferred well into Photoshop. I just called it the Lady Samurai for a lack of imagination with words.