My Old Gouache Portraits - Analysis

After having some comrades give some critiques on these paintings, I went back and posted them side by side with the reference to have a fresh look. They were painted quite a few months ago, so seeing them now without being involved in the making of them, I've noticed many proportional errors and things I could have done better with how I placed my values and strokes too. I think more than proportional errors, in terms of size, are the planes that are skewed and inconsistent, which throws off the accuracy of the picture.

This first image of Krishnamurti has some major proportional issues. He looks 50 years older. The nose I think is well done, but the edge of the shadow underneath it makes the upper lip stand out, and creates a bit of a plane turn, as if he's got a floppy mouth like that of a Simpsons character. His eye is too high up and not dark enough on the top lid, under the brow and around iris/back of the white of the eye. I tried to put too many lighter values where the shadow is under the front of his brow. I should have melded it all into one dark. The eye on the left of the painting is okay but has some issues with how big the brow shadow and the iris shadow are and where they're located. Overall, the edges are all too hard and there's a lot of shapes that are out of proportion and misplaced. Edges in particular are the hair line, shadow by the ear, mouth shadows and neck shadows. A clearly disproportional shape is the back of his head, which is much more narrow in my painting. I think the background should be a darker value than I have it too. It IS darker than the lightest part of his face (forehead and nose etc.) It would be interesting to try going over this painting and fixing it in gouache, to see how well it reactivates and so on. I haven't tried that yet.

I think his nose is a bit big, but almost proportionally correct with the eyes. The bottom half of his face loses the symmetry and it seems his mouth is going forward with his chin. The mouth is on a different axis than the rest of the features. It has also been squished down with his chin being much longer in the photograph. Squinting my eyes when I look at it, I feel that I missed some shadows in the eyes that would fall under the top lids. I also have some very hard edges in the eyes that aren't in the photo. All the edges are sharp actually, other than the jaw line on the left side (from our view) and his clothes. The photo had his hair cut off, and I think that  adding some more hair that would lengthen his head might be good. The background could also be a shade darker, or a couple shades and the highlight on his hair is too strong. His collar is also blurred out and not a nice edge at all.

This one of Gandi may be the best of the group. The composition and contrast of values with it are more stark and make for a better image. The background is dark as it should be and the white cloth is a nice part of the picture. Overall the proportions are pretty good, but there are a few areas that could use better value judgement and greater edge control. One obvious thing is that there is a white spot in the shadow of his (from his view) right cheek. That ruins that shadow shape. Some spots are too bright, like on his mustache. And some areas that are probably a good light value are just not controlled well enough, and they look scattered and unpleasant. It's not good tiling (placing a stroke and leaving it as a shape.) It's got some good things though.

His eyes are big and his face isn't round or oval enough, as it is in the photo. I like the sense of rounded-ness of the eyes though. They really feel like they are balls in the head, though the left eye (from our view) does raise up and that does look like the photograph. There should also be some light above that eye lid, but there is not. I liked the eye highlights on the Gandi image more than these highlights though. They are too big here. The glabella shadow is much harder than the image and it should be a soft blending into the forehead. I also think I tried to inject too much information into the shadow side of his face, but could have made it all much simpler with less halftones. I think the symmetry of the axis' of the features are a bit off too and the chin needs to be bigger. The background has a window, but since I drew more that the photograph shows, I should have added the edge of the window pane that would be seen behind his head and above it. The values of that window should be lighter too. There are issues with the mouth shape and edges. The wall of the background should have a darker value too, more like how the bottom of the window is portrayed in the painting. The ear is also too small and should be darkened.

This one has some cool wet tiling to it. The values are definitely lighter in the painting and it would be better with more contrast. There are various shape proportional errors with the eyes, but I don't mind the look of them either. The nose is small and doesn't hold the same 3 dimensional weight and perspective as the photograph has. The value on his neck is too light and the hair by that side of the chin could be a little thicker and give the face more width with it. The edge of the face on the right side of the painting is also a bit narrow next to the eye which slims down his face too. The ear is very much blended into the hair and not seen at all, which could be okay but it's too smudgy. Overall though, this one has some things I like more than the other paintings. I think the edges are managed better and the whole image has been approached with a good amount of care.

That's my analysis on my first ever gouache portraits that I did a while back.

Thanks for reading.

- Anthony

Summer Term 2017 - 1/3 Months - July

Hi everyone,

This month I started a new selection of self-taught classes and things are well. I was enjoying the Studio Ghibli character design studies and also doing sculpting, which was not on the scheduled list of classes from my last blog post. The character studies are done in a new thing I started, which is a fan art sketchbook of the characters from stories that I think are the best. I have been poor at keeping consistent sketchbooks, so I feel that this way I will be only drawing things I really appreciate, and therefore won't get upset at bad drawings and won't give up and rip out my pages to get a blank sketchbook again. There are no bad drawings in a blank sketchbook.

Another interesting thing I started is a scrap book, which I paste personal writings, drawings and art and photographs by other artists into loose papers in a binder. The point of this is something borrowed from J.A.W. Cooper. It's a sketchbook, journal and scrapbook where I let myself freely go scatter-brain with images and words, but also analyze and observe connections that show up on the pages between my art, other picture I paste in, and writings. It's fun and proves to be useful for exploring my own insights and feelings, like a kind of therapy.

I have stopped drawing for the moment and for a week or two at least, as I describe in the last few paragraphs in this post. Please enjoy the insights and ramblings of my artistic path, listed by date.

 7.3.17

Today I had a difficult time getting motivated to do art. Or rather I was DE-motivated, unenthusiastic and felt the imposing forces of all the knowledge I feel I need to learn still and the skills that are not developed felt like long roads to walk, and I was impatient. So I messed around for a while, doing nothing much and feeling frustrated, but then I went to my brother and said, “I don't know what to do! I can't decide. I'm feeling stumped,” and so on. I just needed about thirty seconds or less and then I realized it was alright, not being able to go any further with my freak out, I started to feel better inside, and soon enough I was sitting drawing a landscape.

I really want to make the most of my art. And I don't know. It's cryptic to me to draw and paint intuitively yet academically. I want to inject more of the question, “what do I want to see? Do I like what I see? I'll change it to be how I like it,” into my practice. I know I have a keen visual preference for many things. I just need to translate that into my drawings, rather than simply having it when I observe things while not drawing.

I have to take on a big job and illustrate a good chunk of my story. It's a good amount of pictures/pages, and it's intimidating, yet it's what I'm going to do eventually, and I have to tackle it now to see it through to that moment when I will be doing it. It's all now, but how am I here? I'm thinking about making a gallery show of some kind. I need to do my own super personal, no-thought kind of work too. I just doodled a page and it was very interesting, opening, free and fun. It has no direction. Even my story has a sort of direction. Sometimes it's best not to when drawing to see how you might intuitively work out ideas and feelings into something magical and unexpected, without a plan.

7.8.17

I went hiking and felt that where I need to spend most of my time is in front of my computer/art desk doing art work. It is good to take short trips and do different things like hiking, which I don't normally do, but it just increased my desire and passion for my art practice. It was also interesting noticing that due to the conditions of mosquitoes being everywhere, we left early and our hike wasn't that relaxing or that exciting. It was more exciting getting ready for the hike, when I had to look up and find all the equipment I would need, buy it, and schedule and organize how we were going to do this hike. The steps to the goal are the exciting part. It is the same for art and it is easy to forget that the joy is in the process or journey to get to the next plateau, rather than the goals we might reach that we aim for.

When your arm hurts while drawing, but you don't want to break, it can be just as good to switch things up. I find that any tension from drawing in tight ways with graphite, ink or digital can be reduced by switching to charcoal, or sculpting. Or just watch demos etc when you need to. There are ways to continue.

7.9.17

I decided not to do Vincente Romero studies for the next three months. I like his work, but I am better off studying figurative works by the Watts Atelier teachers, because they are drawing in the same medium and they have more detailed anatomy in their drawings. Therefore, I can learn to see this anatomy and also learn to render like them. I thought Vincente would lend me to being able to shade and tone with charcoal better, because of his smooth, graded pastel work, but I think that might be a hindrance right now. The subtlety will come over time, through other works too, like landscapes. I don't see a lot of information regarding the anatomy in Vincente's pieces. That is not to say he doesn't know it and might like to leave it out, which makes sense for smooth female skin, but it is not as helpful when I would like to see what I'm drawing, and copy less.

7.27.17

There's not as many notes here as previous months, but I'll try to remember some insights that I didn't jot down when they came. A most recent and evident one is that my hand has been overworked. As a combination of drawing, typing, mouse-using, sculpting and every other thing I do in daily life, my right hand has been tweaking and needs a good break. Before going away for 10 days to the meditation center a while back, I noticed this to a lesser degree, and felt it was a good time to stop for a while. This may be a sign that doing 40 hours a week is too excessive for the body.

Something that I can include now, to continue getting 40 hours a week, but have it be less of a strain on my hands is visualization. I heard about this statistic of how two groups of people trained in basketball, but one group rarely practised with a ball, but instead would visualize it. They did even better than those who worked with the ball in the end of this experiment. I will spend art sessions visualizing practice instead of tangibly using a tool. I know that this manifestation/visualizing works from previous experiences of bringing things into fruition in life, but I haven't considered it so directly with imagining myself drawing a skull, or what have you. It'll work well too since I can visualize things that I've already practised from the Watts Atelier program and therefore practice my memorization skills of these things in a very direct way – straight in the mind.

I have invested in a better keyboard and mouse/mouse pad so that I am more ergonomically sound. I also realize that since streaming I started to draw more with less breaks, and need to take those breaks and stretch my hands for longevity. The point I made in a previous journal also applies here, where switching mediums up is essential for longevity too.

I won't be doing drawing for a week or so though, at least, to heal my hands. I can only draw for 15-20 minutes right now before they are feeling damaged. Not good. So it's time for break, recalibration and visualization.

I think I got a lot out of the visualization I've tried already. Also from breaking. When not being able to draw, I was stumped on what to do with my energy/time. It's also difficult when most things are hand-used, not just drawing related. So it's time for some reading, light-typing/writing, meditating and reviewing old drawings etc.

This month's practice has been halted to a degree, but I'm still feeling good about it all and know it's important to rest now to come back stronger later.

Links to social media are all at the top of the page, under the header photo.

Thanks for reading,
Anthony