the 8 o´clock portraits

**pepps** · January 27th, 2009, 06:30 PM

every morning for a month i´m doing a self portrait.
it is of course to record how sleepy and surreal i can be in the morning.

**pepps** · January 28th, 2009, 03:11 AM

i managed to focus more today, think of the structure, at least in the sketching phase. I somehow totatlly missed the prportions even if i though i had been carefully paying attention to them. In the painting phase i started loosing focus.
What i learnt is that:
1. first to create a gesture for the head, then the structure, and then start fitting the features on it.
2. Every time you make a mark, first check the proportions =)
3. brushstrokes should describe the form.
4. in the morning i´m too sleepy to save files in the proper folder!

**pepps** · January 29th, 2009, 06:13 AM

today i started with good intensions, but ended up in a coma state after a few minutes. It became painfull to hold the same expressione, turn of the head, and draw accurately at the same time.
i somehow manage to miss the structure of the head regularly. It is pointless to jump into late phases if i´m not doing the early ones correctly.
Structure s probably what alla these portraits lack the most. Then proportions ehhe, but i need a somewhat solid structure to then position the features i guess. Might do another today just to try and progress a bit. =)

**a la bapsi** · January 29th, 2009, 09:39 PM

keep going.
try some traditional media self portraits
and just sit in front of a mirror xD
i like your first one the most.

**pepps** · January 30th, 2009, 03:11 AM

hey! thanks for stopping by =)
yeah i´ll try and do one traditionally tomorrow!
today i tried to get a more define structure. i also spent 10 more minutes in front of the mirror to add some values and define someparts better.
The major problem i have is lack of patience. And a part of that is due to my back hurting cause i have to sit in an unconfortable pose, in order to get the face where i want it in the mirror. So tomorrow i´ll try and sit in a more comforable position.
Also i have a hard time getting down proportions and structure in the beginning. Mainly, i can´t understand what i´m drawing. So i´ll have to sit a bit more time tomorrow and figure that out =)
i know that if i spend moe time i can fix most of this stuff, but i want to keep them relatively fast (aroun 30mins) to force myself to focus...
see ya tomorrow =)

**pepps** · January 31st, 2009, 07:27 PM

at this point the markers decided to die =)

i wasn´t much focuse but i maybe managed to learn something anyway.
i need to use the eyebrows to indicate the form of the head. i should pay more attention to the distance between eyes and nose. I tend to make the face mor round, and i don´t make the mouth 3d.
i don´t think i learn much as of what goes where and so on, but i´ll try to watch over these things i just pointed out, in the next one.

**pepps** · February 1st, 2009, 12:12 PM

this one is actually the bast one so far. I managed to get a good likeness and it has structure. It shows improvement anyway.
Main problems i´m having right now are the lips, and getting them in the right position and 3dimensions. the jaw line also has visible problems.
in this one i actually took my time at the beginning, and everthing wen smoother.
i learnt a bit more about the way the upper eyelids are positioned, and about my forhead, haha.
i also learn that the angle of the lines between the lips, determines their perspective...uhm..hard to explain, and i don´t know if it´s 100% correct eheh =)
i wasn´t really concentrated in this one either...i´m starting to think that it doesn´t really matter how focused i am, it´s more my will to commit to do it good, that matters...if that makes sense.

**pepps** · February 4th, 2009, 06:44 PM

argh!!

**pepps** · February 5th, 2009, 07:17 PM

mostly unfocused,
i tried to visualize myself before painting but it didn´t work out very well.

**pepps** · February 6th, 2009, 06:10 PM

today was really painfull!
my right eye just doesn´t want to look the same way as te left one, so i was seeing 2 faces as i drew. I can focus on one, but still it´s not really focusing. I have to put the mirror on the other side of the pc tomorrow and see if it´s better.
I tried to visualize again, but don´t really know what it means, so it´hard to do it =)

**Swampdigger** · February 6th, 2009, 09:13 PM

Hey, looking good so far. Some of your latest ones look like you've been hurrying them though. Try to slow down and think about every line before you put it down, as in, "what is the purpose of this line?" Then try to get it right on your first pass. Act like you're using a pen on paper and you can't erase or undo at all. It's a good thing to redo a line that isn't right but, don't make it harder on yourself by putting down sloppy line after sloppy line (heh, something I catch myself doing)

It's a bit hard to tell exactly what you're doing, but it does look like you're putting down some light guides before you go in, which is good. Keep them light and be pretty thorough about it, maybe try taking it a bit further, I find it helps alot with the confidence of my final lines if I have better idea about what direction they are going in and their placement.

One general thing I noticed, most of the eyes seem to be too big, and they seem a little generic. Something that I do to help place the eyes is to lightly draw a line across the brow then draw the space between the eyebrows and the eyes, helping to define the top of the eye area while I'm at it.

You've got a good habit of critiquing and analyzing your drawings and being active in trying to learn from them, keep doing it. That's something I really need to get into the habit of too. Good luck with the rest of your portraits and I hope my comments will at least be encouraging.

**pepps** · February 7th, 2009, 06:45 PM

Swampdigger: thanks a lot for the support! You´re absolutely right about me hurrying it heh, i want to tell them under 30mins, because that´s usually the timeframe i have for doing this (then i can eat breakfast for 30mins and then start working =) )
you´re also right about the lines, i realized this while doing the last one today, and i´ll try to start doing it from tomorrow.
I usually start with 30% lines to block the proportions and then go over them with black. By that time 20mins are gone and i need to hurry so it gets quite messy.
I notice that is much easier for me to draw othr people from life using pen for example. It goes faster i am more secure with my lines and the results are better. I find myself having problems looking at the mirror and then at the pc, i kinda loose focus in the transition if that makes sense.
about the eyes: thanks for pointing that out...i remember i was thinking some time ago that it was hard to draw them, and probably i continued to think that till now. I realize then that i have problems seeing them properly, so in some portraits i usually step closer to the mirror, usually when i´m not hurrying xD

i´ll try working a bit more confidently tomorrow, maybe placing the mirror nearer, ha!! =)

**pepps** · February 9th, 2009, 06:15 PM

yesterday and today.
yesterday i focused more on lines, to day i wanted to experiment, but time went by, i wasn´t really sure of what i was doing.
today i did some other studies and realized some more things about visualizing and drawing from life, so hopefully tomorrow´s portrait will be better =)

**pepps** · February 10th, 2009, 06:17 PM

today i worked more slowly, maybe too slowly. Lost focus many times, it was hard to keep track of what i was doing.
I tried to focus on visualizing what i wanted to draw, understand the purpose of the line i was about to draw, so that i could use it to describe the form.
It didn´t go that well, i need to focus more on what i´m doing.
It was fun anyway ehe

**pepps** · February 11th, 2009, 05:03 PM

Still trying to go slow, today i also focused a bit on the eyes.
i have some problems with the overall proportions of the face, i have to adjust them every now and then and still they look odd, i´ll have to pay more tention to them tomorrow.