Complete Drawing and Painting Certificate Course

Transcription

1 Complete Drawing and Painting Certificate Course Title: Unit Four Portraiture Foundations Medium: Drawing in graphite and charcoal Level: Beginners Week: Two Course Code: Page 1 of 15

2 Week Two: General overview This week you will first of all look at the placement and proportions of the human adult face. You will then be asked to measure and compare these standard measurements to the placement of the features on your own face by using your pencil and a version of the Sighting technique while looking into a mirror. The sighting technique can be used for drawing many other subjects and is not limited to portraiture. It enables you to measure proportions while working from life. This week you will also be taking a photograph of yourself or the person you will be drawing for your final portrait during this unit. Your photo must be close up and of excellent quality otherwise it is very difficult for you to draw from. There are instructions provided on some of the basic requirements for this photograph in these course notes. Proportion and placement of the features on a human adult face By looking into a mirror and using a pencil as a guide, we are able to measure the approximate placement of the individual features on our face compared to a general set of measurements. These are guidelines only and not a set of rules to be adhered to. These measurements differ in people depending on many variables such as their age, gender and ethnic origin. You can use the measurements mentioned in this course as a starting point to help you discover the exact proportions for each unique person you draw. There is an imaginary line called a central axis which runs through the centre of our forehead, down the centre of the nose, lips and ends at the chin. The eye-level line is always at a right angle to this central axis regardless if the head is tilted sideways or front on (see Figs 1a and 1b.) In this image (Fig. 1b) the face is tilted to the side and the line that the eyes, nose and lips lay on is still at a right angle to the centre line. Both halves of the face on either side of this central axis are not the same as each other. The two halves of the face are so completely different that if we cut a picture of the face down the centre then flipped one half over to the other side and paste the two halves together, the result is a strange widefaced image (see Figs. 2a and 2b.) Page 2 of 15

3 Fig. 1a. Head front on with central axis Fig. 1b. Head tilted with central axis Fig. 2a. Face in normal view Fig. 2b. Two left sides pasted together Page 3 of 15

4 Exercise One: Mark the positions of the individual features on a face Step One: Draw an egg-shape for a head In this first step we will draw a basic egg-shape for the head (see Fig. 3.) please note this is not drawn to scale, you will need to use your ruler to measure. 1. Rule an 18cm vertical line in the middle of your page and place a small dash at the half-way mark. This vertical line represents the full height of a head. This measurement has been chosen as it can easily be divided into the multiples of 6. The average human adult head is 6 to 7 eye-lengths high by 5 eye-lengths wide. We will make our head 6 eyes high by 5 eye-lengths wide in this case. 2. Rule a 15cm horizontal line at the half-way mark you just made. Make sure this line is centred and also at a right angle (90º) to the vertical line. This horizontal line indicates the eye-level line. 3. Draw a simple egg shape to fit these lines (see Fig. 3.) Page 4 of 15 Fig. 3. A basic egg shape for the beginning of a head

5 Step Two: Learn the sighting technique Sighting is a method used by many professional artists to measure proportions when drawing from life. When we attempt to draw from life our mind plays tricks on us and makes judgment of proportions very difficult. If we see that an area of the object is more important than another area, we tend to draw it larger and visa-versa. We can use our pencil as a measuring device and then immediately record the measurement with the same pencil. You can measure objects from a distance or close up depending on your needs and the pencil measuring technique varies accordingly. The main difference when measuring objects close up compared to measuring objects from a distance is that your pencil is held right in front of the object or resting upon it. When you are measuring from a distance your arm will be outstretched and elbow locked into place. You will learn more about measuring objects from a distance in unit five of this course. You would remember the close up pencil measuring technique when you completed the Frog Dog exercise in week two if you completed the unit one Outline Drawing course. This time instead of resting your pencil on the page you will hold it just in front of your face while looking in the mirror at the same time. Let s have a go at sighting the position of the features on your face! 1. Prepare a long pencil (not a short well-used one) with a sharpened tip. 2. Place the sheet of paper with your drawing of the egg-shaped head on a surface in front of you while standing in front of a mirror. For example you could be standing in front of a bathroom mirror with your paper resting on the bench in front. If you don t have a bench under a mirror, you need to be creative to find something to rest your page on so that it is ready for you to draw on while looking in a mirror. 3. Place your pencil with the tip upwards, in front of your face a few centimetres away from your nose and stand looking into a mirror. Keep the pencil at this same distance away from your face at all times or your measurements won t be as accurate as they should be (see Fig. 4.) You will be holding it vertically sometimes and other times horizontally. 4. Once you have placed the pencil in front of you, then you can concentrate on the next step of straightening it and holding it the correct way for sighting (see Fig. 5.) You won t always be able to hold your pencil in this way because sometimes your measurement will require the use of your entire pencil. In this case, when the pencil is held vertically, make sure that it is kept perpendicular to the ground. When it is held horizontally, keep it parallel to the ground. Page 5 of 15

6 Tip: Be careful not to stab yourself with the sharpened graphite part. You need the pencil to be reasonably sharp as we use the tip to line things up with. If you line your pencil up with the bottom end at the top, it is a clumsy process as you have to then turn your pencil around before drawing the mark you just measured and risk losing your measurement in the process. Fig. 4. Hold your pencil in front of your face to measure close up A sharp tip is necessary and must be pointing upwards. Your thumb needs to be able to slide up and down the length of the pencil. The thumb is used to mark the position of the object you are measuring. Your little finger is wrapped in front as stability and will help to slide your hand up and down as you need to measure. Page 6 of 15 Fig. 5. How to hold your pencil correctly for the sighting technique

7 5. Your pencil has to be held in a special way as it needs to be perpendicular to the ground at all times. If you tilt it forwards or backwards you will not gain a true measurement. To help prevent this tilting, hold your pencil as shown here (see Fig. 5.) Note that the little finger is wrapped around in front of the pencil to provide stability for the pencil. The thumb should be free to slide up and down the length of the pencil. The thumb is used at one end to mark the position of the object you are measuring and the tip of the pencil at the other end. Step Three: Measuring the position of the eye-line In the following steps you will be drawing your measurements onto your drawing of the head according to your individual facial features. Begin with the standard measurement and then make the changes necessary to suit your face. We have already drawn the centre horizontal eye-line on the head shape in front of you. Now we are going to double check this line as your first measurement and alter it slightly to suit you if needed. They eyes on an average adult are usually positioned in the middle of the head, measuring from the very tip of the skull to the chin. The eyes of a child are lower down the face. Sometimes the person s hair will affect your judgment with this measurement. Make sure that you measure from the bone of your skull which can be felt through your hair. Your head must be held front-on for these measurements and not tilting forwards, backwards or sideways. 1. Line your pencil tip up so that it is directly in front of the middle of your eye line (see Fig. 6a.) 2. Line your thumb up with the base of your chin and grip the position hard. Your thumb holds the precious measurement. 3. Now take this measurement and line your thumb up with the same place on your eye-line. Notice that the tip is now in line with the very tip of your skull (see Fig. 6b.) This means your eye-line is in the centre. 4. You can double check this measurement by holding your pencil horizontally and gaining the measurement for the length of one eye. Use this measurement to count how many eyes fit in the full height of your head and how many fit across the widest part. When measuring across the head, don t tilt your pencil backwards, keep it parallel to your forehead. Try resting it on your brow-line or a touch below for the widest part of your head. We can measure many things by using what we call a unit of measure. The unit of measure in this case is the width of one eye. Page 7 of 15

8 Tip: Close one eye whenever possible, to see your measurements with monocular vision. Flattening the image before you makes it easier to visualize. Line the tip of your pencil up with the eye-line (this is the line that runs through the centre of your eye. Place your thumb so that it marks the position of the tip of your chin. Hold this position firmly between your thumb and index finger as this is a valuable measurement. Fig. 6a. Line your pencil up to measure from eye-line to chin Page 8 of 15 Fig. 6b. Line your pencil up to measure from eye-line to top of skull

9 5. If your eye-line is in the centre of your head you do not need to make a marking on your drawing of the head because we already drew the centre line in previously (at half-way down the 18cm middle vertical line.) If however your measurement is different ie: above or below half- way, make sure you first of all double check and then triple check your measurement. Your head should be positioned exactly front on to the mirror. If your measurement is definitely different, you can now adjust your initial drawing of the head by either shifting the centre horizontal line up or down (if your head was 6 eye-lengths high but your eyes are not in the middle.) If your eyes are in the middle of the head, but your head is more than 6 eyes high, add more height to your head and shift the eyes a little higher up accordingly. Step Four: Measuring the placement of the nose, lips and ears Sighting uses comparisons to measure lengths and sizes of things. This method allows you to draw in proportion from life, to the size you choose. During this exercise, we have chosen to draw the head at 18cm high by 15cm wide. If we were drawing a head sight-size (that means drawing it the same size that you see it according to your pencil measurements,) we would then translate this exact measurement back to our page using the pencil measuring technique taught in the Frog dog exercise unit 1 week two of this course. This time however, we will not be drawing the measurements the same size as what we see in front of us. We will be adjusting our proportions to suit the size of the head we have just drawn. To do this, we will use either half-way, quarter-way or one-third of the distance to measure. In other cases we will use the length of the eye to measure. Use the same method of measuring that you used for the eye-line to find the position of the nose, lips and ears according to the measurements listed in the drawing here (see Fig. 7.) Work with just one feature at a time beginning with the placement of the eyes on the eye-line. 1. The eye-line is halfway down the face. You have just measured the position of the eye-line relative to your face (see Fig. 7 number 1.) 2. The eyes are positioned along the eye-line (see Fig. 7 number 2.) Most adult faces measure approximately five eyes wide with one eye width separating the two eyes and one on either side of the face between the eye and the widest part of the head. Please note, it is often hard to see the full width of your head because it is covered in hair. You can gently press the side of your skull to feel for the maximum width if you are unable to visualise where that is. Page 9 of 15 It is very unusual to have a smaller gap between the two eyes, but occasionally there are people with heads not quite as wide on either

10 side of the eyes. These people usually have a long narrow face. You could divide this eye-line into five equal sections by using your pencil, but in this case, you can save time by simply dividing it with your ruler into 3cm intervals. Make sure you place a 3 cm width centred across the middle vertical line (central axis) so that the eyes are centred and one eye-width apart. Draw some round dark dots to indicate the pupils and make sure they are in the centre of each eye. 3. The tip of the nose is not quite one-half but more than one-third of the distance between the eye-line and bottom of the chin (see Fig. 7 number 3.) You can make a mark at half-way between the eye-line and the chin on your drawing then measure the position of your nose (see Fig. 7 number 7.) Make sure that you keep your face straight on whenever measuring. Use the sighting method and line your pencil up with the tip in line with your eye-line and your thumb in line with the base of your chin. Look to see where half-way is between this distance then visually compare how close your nose is to the half-way distance on your face. Is it on the half-way or above? Is it on the one-third way mark or below that? Remember where it is compared to these measurements then draw a small line on the vertical axis of your drawing to indicate this position. 4. The middle of the lip (the gap between the lips) can be found about one third of the distance between the tip of the nose and the chin (see Fig. 7 number 4.) Again compare this standard measurement to your own measurement and place a small dash on the vertical line to indicate its position. 5. If you draw a vertical line straight down from the inside corner of your eye, you will find the outside tip of your nostril (see Fig. 7 number 5.) Your nose might be different these are standard measurements and do not apply to everyone so adjust your head accordingly. You can draw some little curved shapes to indicate nostrils. 6. The top of the ear is in line with somewhere between the area below your eye-brow and above your open eye-lid. Make a mark to indicate where your ear is (see Fig. 7 number 6.) 7. The bottom of the ear is in line with somewhere between the area of skin between the top of the lip and the very lowest part of your nose (see Fig. 7 number 7.) Make a mark to indicate where yours is and draw a symbol for an ear as is done here. 8. The corners of the mouth when slightly smiling are directly in line with the middle of the eye if you draw a vertical line down from there. Page 10 of 15

11 Fig. 7. Placement of the features on a human adult face Exercise Two: Take a photograph for your final portraiture project Your task is to take an interesting photograph either of yourself (preferred) or of a person that you will be seeing regularly during the final drawing stage (weeks 6 and 7 of this unit). You will use this photograph in the final unit of the course to use as a reference source to produce a charcoal drawing from. Your drawing will be an expressive interpretation based upon a likeness to the subject (see Fig. 8.) If you choose to take a photograph of yourself you can either set the timer on your camera to allow you time to sit down in position. Better still, get someone else to press the button for you. Make sure you either use a tripod or rest your camera on a solid surface at the correct height to take your photograph as blurred images are difficult to work from. It isn t wise to trust the human hand to hold the camera in case Page 11 of 15

12 you move the camera accidently which can easily produce a blurred image. It is different of course if you are an experienced professional photographer. This photograph will need to be changed to grey-scale to enable you to more easily compare tonal values. If you are unable to do this just send in the coloured image and your tutor will do this for you. Here are some important things to consider in order to take a successful photograph to use as a reference for your final project in this unit; 1. Set up the scene with a plain white background such as a wall in your home or a hanging-sheet so that there are no distractions in the background. There is an emphasis on just the face and mainly and a little bit on the shoulders for this photograph. We are not going to be drawing other elements in the portrait, apart from things that are on and around the head and shoulders ie: a hat or earings etc. 2. Place a single bright light source such as a strong lamp (not a fluorescent bulb as these tend to flatten out the shadows making it harder to see the image) to the left or right and at least a couple of meters out in front of the seat where you will be sitting. 3. Take a test photo to make sure that your camera is in line with your face ie: so that your head is included in the main area of the photograph. 4. Take two photos of the exact same pose as follows; The first one should include your face, hair, neck and the start of your shoulders. Make sure you include the very top and sides of your hair. Only leave a little bit of space around the image when you are taking your photo to ensure it is as close as you can be without cropping sections off. The second photo is to be an even closer image of your forehead to chin. This one is for a close up of your eyes, nose and mouth. Hold your pose extremely still so that the photos are the same. If you are taking your own photo (not ideal) you will need to be able to reach out to the camera and set the timer again for 10seconds and then click the button holding the exact same facial expression the entire time. 5. Position your head carefully so that we can use the division of eyes half-way down the head etc. This means that you need to make sure your face is front on to the camera. You can tilt it to either side or even have it looking straight on, but don t tilt it up, down or turn around to a three-quarter view etc. Use a delicate traditional portrait smile of no teeth. I call this pose the Mona Lisa plus smile, in other words have that almost non-smile that the famous painting by Leonardo Da Vinci s Page 12 of 15

13 Mona Lisa has, with just a touch more of a smile. If you smile too much, your entire face will change the guidelines for you. Also, we will be concentrating on drawing the complex shapes and lines that form the area where the two lips meet. Please take a look at the poses and portraits of previous students from this course at 6. Do not shake or move the camera whatsoever while you are pressing the button. Take at least ten or twenty photographs and then choose the best three with matching close-ups to send to your tutor. 7. Once you have taken your photographs you have two options; either alter the image to grey scale and enhance it using photo-editing software or send your full-colour photograph in to your tutor who will then change the image to grey scale and enhance the contrast to make it suitable for you to use as a reference. Take your time with this photograph as it is crucial to the success of your portrait. Fig. 8. The final portrait will be an interpretation of the photograph based on achieving a likeness to the subject Page 13 of 15

14 What to submit for comments this week; 1. Exercise One: Your drawing of an egg-shaped head with your own unique proportions marked on it. 2. Exercise Two: Take a photograph for your final portraiture project One final good copy grey-scale photograph that you will be using to draw from during your final project this unit. One final good copy grey-scale photograph of a close up view of the exact same photograph. Page 14 of 15

15 Final words Have a fabulous time this week as you find all the areas on your face that are perhaps much different than you previously thought. It is amazing how uneven the sides of our face are. It is all beautiful though. After a while we learn with portraiture that the things that make us individual and unique are so subtle, they are tiny adjustments of angles, lines and shapes. Your ability to be able to compare will be called upon during this unit more than ever before. When you are taking a photo of either yourself of another person for your final project, take care with the choice of top, shirt or jacket you are wearing. A collar or high-neck piece of clothing will be great to draw as you will also have the opportunity to show some nice fabric texture as well, this always impresses your viewer, sometimes it easier to draw fabric than the very gentle tones in the muscle structure on the chest. However, its best to avoid complicated patterns on the fabric at first. The choice is totally yours of course. Please avoid adding glasses, even though you may know yourself in glasses, it is better to leave these out for now. Just be mindful that what is in the photograph will be what you are aiming to achieve in your portrait drawing with charcoal and white conte. This is a more expressive medium than fine pencil shading so make your choices also suitable to the medium (ask for advice if need be make sure you submit a photo at the same time so your Instructor knows what you are asking about.) For people who like to wear lipstick, we recommend you avoid darker toned lipstick as it will be difficult to see the shapes of your lips correctly, pale lipstick is better, if any. Mascara is good for your eyelashes. Eyelashes are great to include if they are really obvious and an important part of the character of the person. Avoid too much blush or rouge on your cheeks, this will interfere with the depiction of the form. Foundation is fine. This should be great fun for you to get yourself all prepared for the photograph. You might even choose to do your hair especially for the big event. Remember to Just show up at your table and the rest will take care of itself! Have a fun week. Page 15 of 15