Lesson 5

Lesson 8

I only used a 4B pencil for all of these sketches, though most noticably you can tell when it comes to the shading in this lesson.

Lesson 10

I absolutely struggle with diverging from a reference image. I'd like to practice more with this, and facial expressions in general. It's not an area I've explored before. 

The red pencil was the initial drawing, then I went over with graphite to try to change a few features, like playing up the smirk, eyebrow raise, and general piratey vibes. 

Update: Final Project

I spent quite a while on many of sketches to come up with something I was happy with. Ultimately, I decided to take a suggestion from one of Al's YouTube videos to focus on a self portrait and came up with these three. 

The purple sketch was okay, but some proportions were off, notably the forehead and lips. This is in large part due to drawing flat on a table instead of propped up. 

The gouache study was next. This admittedly took far too long and was a struggle. Both portraits and gouache are relatively unfamiliar subjects for me, and the color choice, while fun was also quite ambitious. The cheek on the right, chin, and neck all muddied quite badly. The eyes are also too far apart. I was really happy with the shape of the hair and the shadows around the lips, which was a great improvement from the previous attempt. I was going to go back to it later to touch things up, but I decided not to. 

The final self portrait was after a total of six other portrait attempts (four of which were other faces). I decided to grab a new medium entirely (colored pencils), chose four distinct values and colors, and try my hand. I also started from the chin for some reason unknown to me, rather than constructing the head like I usually do. The result was the best likeness of anyone I've drawn to date. So, I guess I've found a new approach! I still need to work on this style. The eyebrows are too clunky, even accounting for the thick colored pencil strokes. However, this portrait went much quicker overall and was really enjoyable.

Thank you to Al for the great class exploring expression, value, and color.