Back again 2011 (33)

[Fiori]

I never really thought about doing daily self portraits until stumbled along this section and was inspired by all the amazing pieces. Well my plan is to follow suit and do at least 1 piece everyday, but I have a rule that I cant use the same media that I did the previous day (so slap me if I do) as I usually feel nice and safe with pencils but I feel I have to branch out more, especially with traditional paints.

Well here we are to start it off, using my safety material to begin with, whilst sitting on the floor attempting to look into a mirror that is balancing on a chair (think I might have to take some photos next time):

06/03/10 - Graphite, F,HB,B - 1 Hour

[Fiori]

Well I got around to posting it before the end of the day although this time I decided to take a picture of myself first as I find its a tad difficult to look at yourself whilst you draw and change pencils and a whole lot of other stuff.

Its one of the first times ive used coloured pencils so I figured I wouldn't try and get a perfect flesh tone just yet and instead go for a dark/light effect, anyway hope you like it, could have been better but oh well

07/03/10 - Coloured Pencils, Red, Purple, Blue - 2 1/2 Hour.

[DI888]

Awesome start here, Fiori! I love the atmoshpere you got going on in your latest one and I admire your skills with the colour pencil. Sounds like a tough challenge you set yourself there, but I'm sure you'll find it rewarding.
Can't wait to see more!

[Fiori]

Today wasn't very successful, for a start I though id give pastels a go, but as I dont have pastel crayons I had to settle for those little block ones which are a nightmare to use imo, and it went completely wrong and was pretty much irrepairable, then I gave watercolours a go but having only used them a couple of times before it didn't go to well, but hey-ho I didnt want to give up so I settle for using biro, although whilst drawing the head I think i lost all drawing ability as it took forever to put the structure together and nothing went right. Half the time it seems like im getting worse (as in drawing in general) as I go along in someways, perhaps im thinking too much . Oh well its done as well as it can be done today I guess, lets hope tommorow yields better results.

08/03/10 - Biro, - 1 1/2 - 2 Hour (not too sure as was half watching sparticus at the same time to ease my mind)

[*ViRuS*]

these are great man, keep it up. looking forward to more =)

[Fiori]

Well today I was planning on using black inks, but for a start I couldn't get the lid of the pot (honestly it was practically glued on) so I did some tests with the blue ink but realised I didnt have the right paper to do it on as it made my normal paper mushy

So here is an (attempted) evil looking me) which came out ok I guess, considering the last time I used charcoal I got more on me than on the paper, but wih a pencil it was more managable, unfortunatly I don't think my sketch pad paper works to well with it as it doesnt blend well with either the charcoal pencil or stick or perhaps it just because its cheap (the charcoal not the sketchpad). I guess I must not blame the tools and gotta keep trying!!


09/03/10 - Charcoal Pencil - About 2 Hours ish

[Windsrock]

Good start!

[Fiori]

hmm well this one didnt really come out as well as I expected after scanning it in. I started it on watercolour paper as I was planning to do a watercolour (2nd attempt) or use some inks, however I just carried on with the line work and built it up in pencil. One problem I have with pencil though is that at times I can work too light thinking that it seems dark until I actually compare it with something that is dark, and therefore I keep building up the layers over and over. Also a problem I found doing this on watercolour paper is that you got to be pretty careful when shading as it has such a rough texture, therefore the combined effect made the picture way too light making it hard to tell the transistion in values. I really think I need to go back to the fundamentals of values anyway as sometimes I get it right and then other times I get it very wrong, so hopefulyl more practice will give more consistancy

10/03/10 - Pencil HB (I didnt want to go any softer as the paper felt too rough for that but perhaps I should have) Around 2 hrs 30 (way more than I feel is worth the outcome, it took forever just to get the proportions right for a start which didnt help )

[Fiori]

Okay today I went in a completely different style and got out my drawing inks that havent been used since high school. As I am usually pretty picky and fret over little details I decided to be pretty rash and just dish it out and you know what, even though it is probably the least realistic piece and looks more like a primary school painting, I actually enjoyed doing it the most. the main thing I liked was just how the colours mixed on the page, especially the red which jsut destroyed the previous coat and went almost luminescent. So it was a fun experiment and maybe ill try another ink painting soon but I was thinking perhaps one focusing more on the flow of lines, we will see Oh and I had to take a picture of it as it was still wet

11/03/10 - Drawing Inks, Around 1 - 1 hrs 30

[no87]

some awesome stuff man!!! nice job on the one on the 9th! i wanaa see more!!!!!

[DI888]

Awesome job with all of these, dude! I love how menacing you made the 4th one feel. Eagerly awaiting more! =D

[Fiori]

ok, slap me now for stopping my daily portraits. Anyways its back to business and managed to get a weeks worth of portraits together before I updated as I didn't want to just put 1 on and then give up again, so 8 in a row is my new record and lets hope it stays that way!!!!

Also I got to note that I have really gotta start using my other sketch book as the paper on my WinsorNewton one is pretty poor, it has no texture, damages very easily and feels cheap, even though it wasn't.

So here are numbers:

07
08
09
10 - Hmm my face went abit boxy this time, I think the alignment of my features just went abit haywire.
11 - Trying abit of squiggly drawing, found it really fun but tires your writst abit when your trying to build up the tones.
12
13
14 - Pretty poor tbh, I gave up with the shading as I could tell it wasnt going right and was looking more like a young kevin spacey than myself

[Phade01]

Wow! those pencil onces are really awesome! Amazing style!

[DI888]

Good to have you back Fiori! Doing some great stuff with those pencils there. Lookin forward to what else you have in store so keep it up!

[Fiori]

15
16 - You gotta love the smugness of this pic lol

well after the crap that I call my last 2 drawings (which looked nothing like me alongside others I have done) I think have managed to redeem myself slightly with my biro studies. Also I used a mirror this time, so even though it was abit trickier I started to feel more comfortable with the shape and form, however I did get mouth ache after smiling on the last pic.

I gotta start using colour again though cos my collection is lacking abit of vibrancy to it

[Fiori]

17 - biro using a mirror (that kept falling down ) - forgot to use colour again, but I love using these biros (i forgot that biro is an english word for ballpoint pen) It was abit annoying at like half way through though as when the pen gets abit dry it becomes so hard to control the tone that you put down and the lines get all scruffy, so it made the nose abit too dark for my liking. I went and got 4 new pens though (25p each wooo) so im ready for my next go

[beigeape]

yo, great stuff!

[Fiori]

18 - ok honestly the last pen cross hatch do-da, I was gonna do a colour one but i ended up drawing it too small so I had to give in. Its a pretty cliche pose but what the hell. Any sugggestions on what colourful media I can use? As long as I got it i'll do it as my next one

[Fiori]

Woohoo, finally abit of colour. I really enjoyed using these pencil crayons but I seriously need a new pencil sharpener that doesn't demolish them Anyone know of any decent ones? I also think I need a new scanner too as mine doesnt scan the colours in right, it made the images pretty green so had to adjust them back on photoshop (which I think worked well enough)

19
20 - tried to go abit abstract here and laid on some pastels and oil pastels, but realised that they dont go well together so ended up abit of a mess, oh well.
21 - Another mouth aching smiley pose, but I feel im getting a tad better on poses from below the eyeline

[Fiori]

22 - Not too keen on this one, I think I went abit too deep with the colours :/ and teh pose was pretty boring too

[no87]

some great work man! good to see you back too doing them daily too!!
i agree with you on the last one. think you should have used the colour of the paper more in the face if that makes sense. keep it up man!!!!

[jeremygordon89]

really sweet style! would love to see what you do with paint too

[AirCoaster]

Fiori, great work here. I find these very inspirational, especially the way you discipline yourself to your goals, whether satisfying or not. Now do some full body shots, just an idea as self-portraits include the full body. Very creative work here Fiori.

John

[Meaisín]

These are some spectacular self portraits Fiori. Really like the first one, and those swarming streams of head-biro are awesome :]

[Fiori]

Wow, its kinda a while since my last post, but art kinda took a back seat after moving to Japan, but as things are more setteld now I am gathering speed on practicing drawing. I definitely need to mix up the media a bit with these and I dont think I can manage daily ones, but perhaps 2 or 3 a week if im lucky

[jetpack42]

Wow, these are awesome. If you can keep it up for a long period of time, you are going to gain some serious skills. Keep looking for the truth in what you are seeing and looking to get better, improvement is already showing. Nice work!

[Fiori]

Well im keeping this thread updated which is good but not ass often as I would like/should be, probably because when I start a drawing I end up spending too long on it :/