My Father's Eyes
 

Working on this for Father's Day. What a work of love to draw your parent. My dad suffered a stroke in January and every day with him is absolutely precious to me. He LOVES to tell his WWII stories and always says those were some of the richest moments in his life. He is president of his local Armed Guard Veterans Chapter. Once a month 10 - 20 of these guys get together for breakfast. I have had the pleasure of driving my dad and hanging out with these extraordinary men.

Anyways' to make a long story short. This is not complete. Still working on hair and have not gone in with white pastel. Any glaring problems please speak up!! You know, I can't see it objectively at all. I do know that the eyebrows need to be darkened quite a bit. And I have not decided how to finish the uniform yet, so any suggestions ...always appreciated

Thank you

Hi Pat,

I think you're doing a fine job so far and it may be too early for suggestions on the uniform. Are you going to take this drawing to the edge of the paper or give it a more 'unfinished' look? Or, if you feel the uniform is too dark to work from, try working from a dark suit with similar lighting.

And regarding the lighting, it appears to be the strongest from above his right and some softer light from the left. Even if the light from his left were natural light from a window or flash bounced of a wall, the highlights you put in his eyes are too strong. I would put softer highlights coming from the right, although it seems that the original light source was high enough that his eyebrow/bone structure prevented a highlight in the eyes. I think, so careful where you place them.

Good luck (you're at a point where you don't need it anymore ;) ) with the finish.

Thanks, Jimmie,

You know I never thought about the highlights being non existent but with light high and to the left I guess that would be a situation where there would not be any seen. It is impossible to see in this reference post but there are very small highlights. So I will definately reduce what I have drawn and tone them down a bit - see how it looks. I don't want to finish the uniform all the way to the bottom of the paper. I like the tapering off effect on drawings, besides this is soooo dark. But I think dad will want the military "strap" that is over the shoulder to be in the portrait as I think it signifies the Armed Guard division of the Navy. That means I have to render the "tie" which will be difficult as it is barely seen in this dark photograph.

Wish me luck - I still need LOTS of it. But thanks for the compliment nonetheless - always means so much coming from you, my drawing MENTOR ;) :)

Hi, Pat,

I'm supposed to be working so I'm surfing the Forum instead. I haven't been able to follow along for quite a while. Your diligence and perseverance in the months (years?) since you first posted here is showing up in your current work. Congratulations.

On the run (the law of economics chasing me), so two quick looks at "minor but worth working on" areas:

1-- the uplift of the corner of the mouth on our right (in the photograph) is a characterizing quality that I'd try to capture. That is, the corners of the mouth are not generic mirror images one of the other; the final line of shadow on the right rises more in keeping with the flow of the lines of the lower lip.

2)-- harking back to the old advice of looking at shapes within shapes, I think the ear on our left is a bit wide in the upper contour, and I think it will correct itself if you look not at the contour itself but at the size, shape and exact placement of those two shadow shapes within the ear, relative to each other and to other nearby shapes. (Think "shapes," not "ear." The ear will take care of itself.)

Finally, don't be afraid to work some darker values into the appropriate places, with a very dark accent here and there. I think you're trying not to get sucked into the low key of the photo, but remember that you're also trying to depict form in a representation that must stand by itself, and that requires value range (or, at least, value differentiation). Don't peer into the photo to the point of eyestrain, though. You'll just "know" where some value adjustment is needed -- as, for example, a darkening along the left side of the neck, to create a columnar rather than cut-out appearance. (You could also pop the original image into Photoshop and play with the brightness and contrast to exaggerate the values and help you "see" shapes that might be useful.)

There. As soon as I type "quick" or "brief," I'm already lost. But you needed a break anyway, right?

Steven!!!!!!!!!
Oh it is so good to open up the forum and see your name. First, just to know you are around. Because you contributed so much to my development as an artist, I feel partial to ya! ;) Your critiques taught me more than I could have ever learned in books or any classroom I have ever been in. I would advise any newcomers on the forum to go back into the archives and read EVERY critique Steven ever gave on portrait drawings. His lessons, his eye, and of course, his good humor and wit are priceless and will really teach you how to LOOK at your drawing/reference.

That said, I KNEW something was still wrong about the mouth and you spotted it right away, the simplest, slightest adjustment and now his mouth is dead on - I was holding it up in mirrors, looking at it upside down, and I knew it was off, just couldn't see where. THANK YOU!

I will revisit the ear, I think you are right just looking at it now. And I will go in darker as I finish it up, but you read my mind, in that I was afraid of going too dark because of the reference photo!!

Great to hear from you Steven. Hope you are painting up a storm and doing well, and that you come here to visit us as often as is possible...

Now, back to work!

This is actually illegal now, having been uncovered as one of the nefarious abusive interrogation techniques used against prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

It would probably never have come to light, had not the music being blasted into the compound 24-hours a day been a compilation of my high school guitar covers of John Denver tunes.

Next up: Mimeographed reproduction of my (Bob) Bouguereau copies from early art school.

I would like to have done this one more time before giving it to dad, but I ran out of time. He does really like it, it created a great deal of emotion. So I guess that is good. But . . . I am very unhappy with the finished product. I wanted to find a fixative which would rid the drawing of that graphite shine. I could only find a product by Grumbacher which advertised as for charcoal, pencil and pastels. It was terrible! It toned everything down so much and made the darkest darks look kind of grainy. I was very careful to spray as directed. I will never use the product again.

So as you can see there is a terrible sheen to the pic. I could not get a good shot of it. I guess the good news is that the family enjoy it, and they do. And most important, Dad loves it.

Life . . . full of lessons. Anyone have suggestions of a GOOD product to use as a fixative? Julie Dean, I know you mentioned something, but i can't find your post which mentioned it - - - HELP!

Thanks for all your input. As always, each piece teaches me so much.

Pat

Thank you Steven,
I have printed this out, to keep and reread! I am at my office so I cannot look at the can, but I can tell you it was NOT a reworkable fixative, so it was more of a varnish. This was a tough lesson and one I have definately learned from. I will only use the reworkable fixative in the future, which I have used in the past, but it never gets rid of the graphite sheen entirely.

I do put my drawings behind glass.

Hey Patricia,

This sounds like the product that I've been using lately.

I've had pretty good luck using this as Steven described above. I think it's important to go at it in a sparing, cautious manner, and work slowly into the level of coverage you desire. I don't remember if the "matte" finish was an option. My own personal taste is for a "matte" look so I would have picked this up pretty quickly. Maybe if you chose the "gloss" (if there is one) this would not make as big a difference on those areas of "sheen."

Also a warning -- don't use this product with a bic lighter to kill mesquitos. As you can see I managed to set the sky on fire, which did not endear me to my neighbors here in the gulf states region.

I thought that might be the case, Pat. I can think of no reason why one would ever need to apply varnish to paper-backed artwork, short of desiring a decoupage look. That of course is the opposite of what you wanted, and I suspect that the finish you used made the graphite's shininess more, rather than less, evident -- which is precisely what varnish and lacquer are supposed to do (as well as protect the surface) -- in addition to darkening the values of everything from sketched areas to the paper itself.

The term "workable fixative" can create misconceptions. It's workable in the sense that you're just kind of hitting the "Save" button on your project up to that point, but you can come back in and continue to draw. Even if you don't intend to do any more work after applying the fixative (that is, your "Saved" version becomes your Final), it's a perfectly adequate finish sealer in its own right. As mentioned earlier, don't use any more than necessary to prevent smudging of the drawing -- nothing will serve conservation purposes more than using acid-free art materials and then keeping to a minimum the addition of various chemical compounds such as spray finishes or fixatives.

By the way, you may know this, but for future reference, both glass and acrylic are readily available in nonglare types, which will also help diminish graphite sheen.

If it makes you feel any better, I once painted an entire log house (all by myself, which is more neurotic than praiseworthy) with something called "latex stain," which seemed like a brilliant solution to a messy proposition. Unfortunately, logs have to "breathe," and without being able to, they begin to deteriorate quickly. The entire two-story house had to be stripped and properly stained with the genuine article. I don't usually enjoy revealing my missteps, especially when they're so expensive and public, because it conflicts with my persona of infallible resourcefulness and self-reliance, but perhaps you can take some solace in having simply "joined the club." We're everywhere. You just have to look around. It's the nature of things, and as teacher Pema Chodron often reminds us, we "don't have to freak out about it."

Thanks, for the heads-up and enjoyable tales, guys! Oh Steven, I would just have to redraw this portrait, stripping a whole log cabin . . . O U C H ! ! ! !

It must have been a varnish I got and I will not use it again! That is, unless those pesky mosquitos don't leave me alone :o

FYI

For anyone else out there wondering what NOT to use on their graphite drawings. I went home for lunch just to check what I did use and it is Grumbacher (Gloss) Tuffelm Final Fixative. The Tuffelm is in smaller print. I saw Final Fixative and thought it was what I wanted but now I think it was the Tuffelm that may be the culprit. Anyway, it made the drawing dark, and grainy and very dull, as you can see.

Sorry about late reply
 

Hi Pat -

I'm sorry - I've been out of town, or I would've responded sooner.

What I use is a product I got at a Hobby Lobby store: called "Krylon Matte Finish" - it says "eliminates glossy sheen, creates a soft, satin finish".

No product is perfect,, and this one wasn't either. I overdid it once, resulting in the same problem of value reduction that you mentioned. Plus, as it gets down to the end of its "life", it gets more drops and less mist. So if you decide to try it, use with caution.

Steven's suggestions for spraying sound very helpful.

Even with the spraying problem, I bet your family loved this picture!

Julie,
I should have gone back and found your post but I was lazy and found mysel fin the art supply store looking at them all w/o recall to what you suggested.

Thank you, and yes, my family does like the portrait. Of course I have said nothing to them about the value change!

Some interesting and worthwhile follow-up reading on the subject:

http://aldridgestudios.com/610-Fixative.html
http://www.capecodpastelsociety.com/conservation.html
http://www.equiis.com/table.html