Fedodika the Koala

[Fedodika]

mr berndt: Alrighty... so I have stepped back from my drawings but it was usually later in the process to check the values, and ya you are right in most of those i was working about a meter from the drawing. For this redo i just set it up with a printout of the reference and tried to stand back quite far, until, as you said, could cover the drawing with my hand. I found myself doing a very similar process id learned from Amaya Gurpide at a workshop i was a model in. She would hold the pencil and do uniformly horizontal lines, step a few feet back, observe, then do a few more lines. I found myself doing an envelope of the contours as she did, using large blocks for placement and trying to capture the overall read of the image as opposed to the individual features. Due to the overall masses being more accurate, the features fit into them easier, and looked more accurate because of it.

This really like simplified things, and the image looked stronger from earlier on because it seemed to be following the logic of the image itself. The likeness ended up much better, plus fitting more on the page albeit not the entire photo. I spent less time trying to hold my pencil a certain way and more time trying to make the horizontal lines make certain shapes and let them look the way they did. Everything was in service of the impression, and i was surprised how little detail was needed for things to read. 

So yea, thats a great way to do things, cant say it was difficult or frustrating at all. Still dont think i could do the chloe pic, im just sick of trying it, and yes staying up too close to an image ends up this endless cycle of something is wrong, then something else is wrong. I guess the extreme of that would be working on one feature at a time then wondering why it doesnt all fit together... I mean if someone was willing it could eventually work but its just unnecessarily difficult. 

As far as jeff, i really love his painting and sketching style; he teaches alot of different oil techniques like umber pickouts, alla prima, soft scumbling, drybrush, etc. I grew a lot as an artist upon finding him and the reilly lineage is something i find very beautiful and useful, but it, like anything, requires repetition and attention, as its more geared towards figure invention and design, which is something im very interested in doing. However for pure observation, the standing far back thing is genius, yea fuck.