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Old 07-30-2008, 01:37 PM   #3
Michael Georges Michael Georges is offline
PAINTING PORTRAITS
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Joined: Nov 2001
Location: Loveland, CO
Posts: 846
So I have been at this life drawing stuff for about 20 weeks now, and I thought it might be good to give a sort of progress report and reflect a bit on this focused time drawing from life.

As I have written about before, I had spent more than 100 hours drawing from life through the years, but had never really achieved any proficiency. The first drawing below is where I started from - certainly not an auspicious beginning...

While I still have a LONG way to go, in just 20 weeks I feel like I have seen pretty dramatic improvement. My comfort level drawing from life has gone way up. I see huge improvement in my ability to get a likeness. It has greatly helped my ability to perceive and represent value as it is expressed in color from a live form across a distance. It has improved my compositional skills, understanding of edge control, head anatomy, etc.

In short, I am really pleased at how quickly I have seen improvement!

Last night our model flaked out, and Lanette, our host agreed to model. The second picture is Lanette and I think represents a lot of what I have learned in these 20 weeks.

I still have a vast distance to go, but I have rarely done ANYTHING in my life that has been so interesting, engaging, and so rewarding!
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Michael Georges
www.fineportraitsinoil.com
Michael's Life Drawing & Painting Blog

Regular and consistent work from life will improve your portraits.
Drawing skills are the foundation of all an artist does.
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