Pencil portrait
 

I did this pencil sketch of my boys as a gift for my wife this past christmas. Since giving this gift I have received and completed two additional portraits in the same medium.

I would appreciate any constructive comments on this piece. It appears I will be doing additional portrait drawings in the near future and desire to improve.

Just passing through but wanted to quickly note that your excellent work immediately reminded me of that of fellow Montanan Don Greytak, who I believe has always worked exclusively in pencil. I "discovered" him during a Minnesota camping trip when we ventured into Brookings S.D. for a huge, wonderful annual arts festival. See Greytak's work at: http://www.digisys.net/bayside/print...k/greytak.html

Back later.

The piece is rendered beautifully and I envy you the accomplishment of capturing these guys at this age. I'm struggling to get my 13-year-old into a nice portrait before he turns 21 on me, which I think is going to happen next week, judging by events of the past one.

Your light and darks are subtle but certainly there, and you've astutely kept that distinction all the way up into the forms of the hair.

I'm not a stickler about the "tooth" issue but in this case, that's the only thing that I would suggest reconsidering, in two respects, both relating primarily to the guy on the viewer's right. I'd suggest getting a kneaded eraser in there (if you haven't applied fixative) and lifting out a lot of those dark outlines around each tooth. Secondly, treat the bottom row of teeth as an overall form, which is going to darken considerably as it moves back into the mouth, rather than appear bright and defined all the way out to the corners of the mouth. (If a flash photo has illuminated those back teeth, try squinting down at it to "lose" that effect.)

One last look makes me want to suggest toning down the neck on the boy on our right -- it looks "flash" bright and is incongruous with its being surrounded by the turtleneck and heavy sweater collar. You may need to tone down the jawline and chin on the shadow side, too, so that the newly-darkened neck doesn't get "tonally separated" from the head.

Being able to draw this well puts you in excellent stead for just about any kind of work, in any medium. I see from your website that you already know that. Do check out the Greytak site for fun.

Steven

Robert,

I hope you won't mind that I retouched your artwork to illustrate several things that I thought would help your drawing. And just before I posted my response I noted Steven's comments and also added some shadow under the chin as he suggested. I also agree that it is a very good drawing.

The first thing I noticed was the teeth. I'm getting better but dislike having to do them. I didn't use a kneaded eraser but tried to do the same by underplaying the divisions in both subjects.

Lights and darks in the sweater on the child to the viewers left seemed to have too much going on and the transition around the neck was too pronounced. You will also note some changes to the shadow line where face and sweater meet on both sides and I lightened shadow where the turtleneck meets the body of the sweater. It seemed too strong.

You did a fine job on the hair but again I couldn't help myself and softened the young man's hair at a few places to break up the outline on our left side.

I'm sure you will notice other little touches that you may or may not like or wish to change.

Keep up the good work.

I just wanted to thank you both publicly for your constructive comments. I would like to say that I was a bit skeptical about registering on and posting a portrait. I have found this to be a most rewarding experience, however, and have recomended this site to one friend already.

Thank you again.
Robert Viau