Man, dig my crazy hat

Jeff Fuchs · 09-21-2003, 07:09 PM

What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than sketching an old Rembrandt? (I'll tell you a better way! Sailing! The boat was hitched and ready, but those lying so and so's at the weather channel... 10% chance of rain my aunt fanny. I'll let you know when the flood watch is over. But I digress).

I guess we all do our share of Rembrandt portraits. It's a staple. Don't debate me on who was the greatest painter in history, my mind is made up. We're making plans to fly to Boston this Fall for the Rembrandt exhibit.

Anyway, this is plain old pencil on plain old paper.

Jeff Fuchs · 09-21-2003, 07:10 PM

Detail

Michele Rushworth · 09-21-2003, 07:35 PM

Jeff, can you post the original?

Jeff Fuchs · 09-21-2003, 07:51 PM

Geez, then you'd see my mistakes!

Michele Rushworth · 09-21-2003, 09:44 PM

Jeff I admire your dedication! What an ambitious task for a Sunday afternoon. I think you've made a very credible start and are really moving in the right direction.

Here's what I see when I look at these images close together. Differences in the shapes of: the hat, the lower ear, the shape in the lower center of the nose (what's that called?), the lower right cheek area, and the eye alignment.

These things can be easily fixed (though the hat may take some serious erasing since it's such a large dark shape) and I don't think you're that far off.

Nice job!

Peter Jochems · 09-22-2003, 02:32 PM

I have a general remark. You seem to be afraid of making the skin-parts darker in the shadowy areas. The ear, the chin and the right side of the face are too light.

Maybe making several photo-copies of this drawing and adjusting those by trying to make these copies darker at certain places would be a good practice.

Jeff Fuchs · 09-22-2003, 03:40 PM

Peter,

This will be a major obstacle for me to overcome. When I draw, the darks seem fine, but when I stand back and look, and especially when I see my work on the computer, it's too light. I try to overcome this, but I end up over-working the drawings. Maybe I should be using conte instead of graphite.

I'm open to suggestions. I have tried filling the grain of the paper by using a stump, but that was disastrous. For this piece, I went over the hat and hair excessively, and even added charcoal, and I felt it made it worse.

Tell me what to try, and I'll try it. The photocopy idea is good, if I can sneak a few copies past the boss.

Peter Jochems · 09-23-2003, 02:41 PM

Try using a simple ball-point, I like the feeling of that. Sometimes those typical artist-materials are just clumsy to work with. Ball-point on regular photo-copy paper to practice! It's good for accuracy and you can make it quite dark also.

09-23-2003, 04:23 PM

I used to be afraid of the dark too. It seems like such a commitment, to act so aggressively toward something that seems to be going pretty well, up to that point.

I got out of it by establishing my overall structure, then working from the darks backward. Make sure the darks are really dark, then pull back. Another thing is, when you're copying something use a value scale to determine the value of the area you're working on, and then do not stop on your drawing until you've reached the same value, no matter when you think it looks good and you should stop.

Peter's got a good point too - you're using a pretty gentle pencil and it's easy to say it's your 2B's fault, Hey Man It Won't Go Any Darker. When you were working in ink and posted them the other day, you had good value ranges, especially on the Lord Leighton. I liked the way you described the cheek, an area that on this drawing you were much more timid about.

My favorite sketching tool is a Sharpie. I love Sharpies. Get thee to an Office Max!

Joan Breckwoldt · 11-05-2003, 10:37 PM

Hi Jeff,

I have enjoyed reading some of your posts and seeing your work.

I have the EXACT same problem you do, making my darks too light. I had an instructor in the Netherlands that really helped though. She gave me the assignment to draw a portrait with a black marker. Consequently everything on the page was black or white. All the shadow side of the face, neck, hair, etc. was BLACK. And, to my surprise, the 'portrait' still looked pretty good. It helped me to see that even going to the extreme with a big black marker was okay. That was a very important part of the learning process for me. I still have to remind myself to darken my darks, but I think that little experiment helped.

Best of luck,
Joan