A Workshop on Drawing Portraits

I ran another of my Portrait Drawing Workshops this past weekend.  I've done this one several times before and we've always had a good time.  This class was no exception.  It's a 2-day workshop that goes for about 4 hours in the afternoon.  We don't hire models as we already have enough in the room already.  I have a format that seems to work pretty well.  And I use an unexpected book as a primary reference.  Each of these statements needs a bit of explanation.

These workshops go for no more than four hours because I've found that my students tend to hit the wall at that point.  At three hours, they're still going strong; at four, their eyes start glassing over and the enthusiasm takes a marked downward turn.  So rather than flog a dead horse, I wrap things up while there's still life left in them.  A couple of weeks ago, Robert Hagan ran a workshop in my studio that went from 9-5 for three days with one hour off for lunch.  I saw that the students came close to the saturation mark about the time we broke for lunch.  The break restored our enthusiasm and we wrapped up in the afternoon before we ran out of steam altogether.  So four hours seems to be the maximum amount of time to keep people cooped up and focused on something before they need a break.

I run my workshops in the afternoon.  The reason is simple: I don't like to get up early in the morning!  I did that for many years and don't want to do it again if there's any way around it.  And since I'm the one setting the schedule for my own workshops, there's definitely a way around it.

My portrait workshops don't use hired models.  Instead, all of the students model for each other.  This exposes them to a wide variety of differences in features.  They all have different eyes, noses, mouths, chins, hair (including a lack of), head structures, proportions, and so on.  I shift them around so they don't draw the same individual twice in a row.  And they all get to experience being a model for a bunch of artists and having their features analyzed in a class discussion.  So far, everybody has had a good sense of humor about it. 

For the format of the workshop, I start with a discussion of the basic structure of the head.  I don't break out a skull and have them draw it as that approach never really did much for me.  Instead, I show them a way to quickly build an armature for the head, a quickly sketched basic structure that they could stretch, compress, turn, and arrange as needed.  Then we look at all the various features: eyes, nose, and so forth, and talk about how they're formed and what to look for in each individual.  We also talk about proportions: the relationships between all the different features, some ways to analyze them, and getting them down on paper.  And then we draw each other, one at a time.  These are generally quick drawings, about 15 minutes to draw and then maybe 10 minutes or so to do a group critique.  This is a portrait DRAWING workshop, after all, so they should be drawing as much as possible.

As for my primary reference book, it isn't one about drawing portraits at all, at least not in the traditional sense.  It's The Mad Art of Caricature! A Serious Guide to Drawing Funny Faces, by Tom Richmond.  Yes, my portrait reference is a book about caricatures.  Tom Richmond is one of the best in the world in this field.  You look at one of his figures and you know instantly who it is.  In caricature, you have to identify what makes an individual face unique and then exaggerate it so it's (a) recognizable and (b) funny.  In portraiture, you have to identify what makes an individual face unique and then render it at least somewhat realistically so it's recognizable.  The actions are very similar.  Richmond's book does a much better job at describing everything that goes into capturing the essence of an individual than any fine-art portrait drawing book I've ever seen.  I found my copy at my local Barnes & Noble, but you can get it at Amazon too (of course).

So we had a successful workshop.  I was really and truly impressed by how far the students came in just two days.  Everybody, and I mean everybody, showed improvements in their abilities to see the differences in features and to accurately capture the features in pencil on paper.  It really felt good to see that.  One of the students even asked if I could do this workshop once a month!  Umm, no, but I do give it about two or three times a year.  Maybe I'll do one that's a bit more advanced next time, or focus more on the "drawing" aspect rather than the "seeing".  

Working the Rust Out

I've been focused a lot on artwork ever since finishing the training session in Indiana last week.  I started by pulling the book "Portrait Painting Atelier" off my shelf and reviewing it.  The book has a lot of great technical information in it and, after my recent experience of trying to paint in the studio, I needed a refresher.  And that's where I found out about Robert Liberace, a young artist with a beautiful way of putting a painting together.  In my last post, I mentioned all that, along with links to some YouTube videos of his.  Right after that, I bought his "Alla Prima Portrait" DVD.  This is a 3-hour demo of an alla prima portrait, and he maintains a running commentary on what he's doing the whole time.  It's not cheap, but it's a seminar in which you can stop, replay, and take over and over again.  I've gone through maybe half of it and have taken a ton of notes.  Especially now that I've started pushing paint around again, I've got recent experience that relates to what he's talking about.

Every artist has his/her own quirks and I'm no exception.  I tend to make hands a bit too large, for one thing.  I also tend to start with the head and, as I work my way down the body, make the body bigger and bigger, so that when I stand back, I've got a small head on this oversize figure.  Been doing this forever, and since I know about it, I can watch for it and correct it as it happens.  Another quirk is when the model's head is tilted to one side.  I'll draw the head tilted, but then the eyes, nose, and mouth will all be level.  Very frustrating.  And while watching the Liberace video, I saw him doing the exact same thing!  It was quite amusing to see that I'm not the only one who falls into that trap.

Yesterday I went to the studio and banged around a bit.  I took a sketch from Afghanistan and did a portrait study in oil from it.  There were lots of issues, of course, but I played with it for a couple of hours and it actually started turning into something decent.  The moment that I started thinking about keeping it, though, I took a rag and wiped it out.  This is "spring training" for me, a time to get back into the rhythm, get the juices flowing, and nothing I do here is going to be a keeper.

Today, I was in the studio again, prepping some gessoed sheets of paper for use in studies and color swatches.  I also did a charcoal self-portrait.  Here's the way it looks on paper:

I'm a pretty good model for myself: I know the pose needed, and I can hold it as long as necessary, and getting back into just the right position is easy.  None of which would apply if I was modeling for somebody else.  This image looked about right to me, but then, it's a mirror image (what I see in a mirror) which is not what others see.  So here's a mirror image of the mirror image:

The wife thought it was "okay ...", which isn't exactly a rousing endorsement.  Not sure if the image missed the mark or if I made myself too stern or what.  No matter, I needed to make something today and this was it.

Tomorrow: back to the drawing board.  Literally.

Drawing Block

Last night we had our regular life drawing session in my studio, and I discovered that I have a drawing block. It's due to my recent stint as a courtroom artist. When I was drawing in the courtroom, I used a mechanical pencil. It worked great there: I could be loose and quick, erase any grievous errors, it worked well with watercolors, and it looked pretty good when the cameraman zoomed in on it. The problem? I got too used to working on small drawings with a mechanical pencil.

At our last two drawing sessions, I've tried to break away from the pencil and use charcoal and Conte crayons. But they need a different way of thinking, and I just can't get the ol' "charcoal brain" going. It's like trying to draw with my left hand: all that comes out is crap and there's no connection between my brain and the paper. I switched back to mechanical pencil and did some pretty decent drawings.

Guess I just have to bite the bullet, get out the big newsprint pad, and just keep drawing until it works again. It's frustrating, y'know? I figure I should be able to switch back and forth pretty quickly, but it isn't happening. To quote Charlie Brown: "Aaaarrrrggghhhh!!"

Back in Court

I was back in court today, working for WLOS as a courtroom artist. Today three of the four primary defendents were formally read the charges, pled "not guilty", and requested a jury trial. The news teams all thought it would be over pretty quick, a 10-min process for each one. NOT! The first one, Bobby Medford, went for about an hour and a half. The next two were considerably quicker, about 45 min each. Fortunately for me, the judge allowed me and the other artist (for the local newspaper) to sit in the jury box, so we had good views of all the principals. Here are a few of the drawings that made it onto the evening news:

This is Bobby Medford (center), the former Sheriff, along with two of his attorneys.

Johnny Harrison (right), a former police lieutenant ...

"Butch" Davis (right), another former police lieutenant.

I've used pastels in court before, but this time decided to go with watercolor. I'm better with a pen and pencil than I am with pastel, and you gotta have all your pastels out, which is a hassle. So I worked on getting a reasonably good drawing in the courtroom, then went outside and laid on the watercolor.

Oh, and today's outcome? All three remain in jail without bail. The judge said that, since they were police officers when these crimes were committed, he couldn't give them any restriction that they hadn't already violated. So in the slammer they go. The trials will probably occur around the March timeframe.

Drawings

Not long ago, I mentioned that I'd been looking at the drawings of Helen Gotlib. I realized that my own drawings from life had gotten way too stiff and tight and that it was time to loosen up. So in last week's session, I used a pen and just let the whole arm go free. Over the next few days, I hit the drawings with washes of watercolor, scrubbed some of 'em out, and generally beat 'em up. Here are some of the results.