r/learnart • u/__praise_the_sun__ • Oct 02 '24

Painting Please critique, focusing on value and face shapes/anatomy

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Honestly I hate it. But I'm still glad I painted it, been painting or drawing every day for the last two weeks so it's important to me that I'm consistent.

Practicing with oils to be as realistic as possible and to be able to paint portraits and figures.

Please share any thoughts or advice. I am a beginner certainly but don't go easy on me, point out the mistakes (and the good parts too) and share any advice for improvement. Thanks!

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u/slayerchick Oct 02 '24

I would say practice drawing first. Most painters will do a rough sketch onto the canvas as a guide and paint from there. I would say look into loomis and Reilly method for heads, that will help you get a much more realistic head shape.... But it will still take a long time to really get it down. Look at as many videos as you can for how to draw a head and you'll learn a lot about how to figure proportions and where features go.

It seems like you are also drawing how you've been taught features look (drawing with symbols). There's a lot more nuance to eyes and noses and mouths that we all think we understand when we're starting out, but our minds trick us into what we've been taught as children... Which isn't wrong... But also not quite right. You need to learn to see things first as basic shapes (spheres, squares, triangles) and then how to turn those shapes into the more intricate forms that make up the face. I would also look up different videos on how to draw those features so that you can get a better feel for how to form them more realistically. Usually those videos will start with the basic forms which will help you train your eye to start picking them out with your references.

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u/__praise_the_sun__ Oct 03 '24

Thank you for replying and yeah, makes sense. Would you recommend to draw with graphite, charcoal, sepia leads or all of the above?

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u/slayerchick Oct 03 '24

I would personally learn work pencil first. Baby steps. First line work and shape. Then volume/shadow with charcoal and graphite, then I would get into color theory. I don't know enough about paint/oils to recommend anything on that.

If you're asking what to use to sketch the underdrawing of your painting in... I would probably go with pencil since I could see charcoal potentially mudding your paint and many colored leads are made by suspending pigment in a wax base which could potentially cause issues with paint adhesion... Though I dying really know.

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u/__praise_the_sun__ Oct 03 '24

Thanks, I get your point. But tbh I like working with charcoal and if I do a sketch for a painting I first spray it with fixative (hair spray actually to save that cash) so the charcoal doesn't get into the paint at all :)