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Fast forward December '09, Luke
Almost two years later, James’s had purchased the entire portrait drawing series (the Portrait Drawing Mastery Collection) and had obviously read the material in the Foto Pak disc on How to Draw Portraits from Photographs where we discussed photographing and lighting models.
Taking your own photos of your models is far preferable to working from professional photography fashion stock photos any day. For one thing you are using original material and you own the copyright
The photo of Luke is what we call classic Rembrandt lighting. It’s when you set up the light source on one side of the model so that strong shadows appear on the other side of the face and generally there is a triangle of light on the cheek just as James has here. When lighting portraits we want good contrasts of light and dark which depict sculptural three dimensional form. There is a lovely patch of light falling across the eye in shadow in James’s photo and Luke has good strong features to work with
James has shot this photo from an interesting angle too. The head is tilted back and to the side slightly which has created a few interesting challenges.
With the head tilted back and the underplane of the jowl visible there is ample opportunity for confusion and conflict. James has drawn the portrait as if he is seeing a straight-on frontal view. Here then is a classic example of our symbolic preconceptions clashing head-on (no pun intended) with what is actually seen.
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When the head is tilted back, as in the photo of Luke, what we think of as the classic proportions are rendered completely off cue. For example, in the level frontal pose the base of the nose is generally at the half-point point between the brow ridge and the mental protuberance of the chin. We usually do not see the underplane of the jowl and, hence, that is why we use the mental protuberance as our measure.
But in this tilted back pose the underplane of the jowl plays an important role and therefore it needs to be incorporated in determining the overall proportions. The base of Luke's nose is arguably a trifle more than a third of the measure from the brow to the base of the jowl's underplane. The interstice (opening) of the mouth is a little more than halfway between the browline and the jowl.
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When we are first working out the shape and proportions of a head that is tilted back (or forward) we experience conflict with what we think those proportions should be (our symbolic preconceptions).
In the January portrait drawing tutorial, A Character Portrait, my sitter had a forward tilt. Note the small distance from the nose to the mental protuberance. The distance, too, from the browline to the base of the nose is surprisingly large.
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A forward or backward tilting portrait will always offer some surprises that you must be ever vigilant of. It's quite easy to second guess yourself when your initial arabesque and proportions start to look quite strange.
James has done a great job with the facial hair. In essence facial hair is handled tonally and the lights are picked out just like the hair and eyebrows. It’s also not something you want to overstate. Good job. In the upcoming February Drawing E-Zine's portrait tutorial I am featuring a male portrait, also with a significant backward tilt, with facial hair lighting a cigarette.
While there is still some struggle with sizing the iris, drawing the lips and the height to width ratios, in this portrait James has achieved some real progress in terms of a life-like realism instead of charictature, emotional tone and expression and better drawing technique. Having good lighting has given James a lot more to work with to achieve 3-dimensional form by supplying lights and darks within a bigger tonal range and a variety of cast and form shadows. The shadows make our job easier by also giving us many more landmarks to use for measuring, sighting, plumbing to achieve greater accuracy and realism. Good lighting can also set the emotional tone, expression and feeling.
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