Self Portrait

[Paul Foxton]

It's time I bit the bullet and posted one of my self portraits for critique. Although each of my drawings only serves to show me how far I've got to go, I think that this one does represent a minor improvement over previous efforts.

That said, please don't pull punches - you could never be harder on me than I am on myself. I will say this though: I'm more concerned about getting the basics right than I am about finish at the moment.

This was done over two 6 hour sessions, in charcoal, from life. If you're interested, I've posted some progress shots on my site here.

Thanks in advance for your time.

[Marina Dieul]

Hi Paul,
This is a nice self- portrait. I took a look at your shots in progress ang was very impress by your hard work and the cartesian way you work. ( the contrary of me : the more I work, the less I mesure, all become intuitive...)
Your drawing seems very good, and I just like you take a careful look at the values, particularly on the shadow side. It appears a little flat to me . I think you have a reflected light from the left ( our left), but it doesn't read like a reflected light because it's a little too light ( under the mouth).I would expect to see more dark accents...
Keep the good job, efforts always pay !

[Paul Foxton]

Hi Marina,

Thanks for the reply. I find I have to measure very carefully - you should see what happens when I don't! Hopefully there'll come a time when my eye is developed enough to trust more, but that's some way off right now, I think.

You make a good point about about the reflected light. I know that my lightest dark should be darker than my darkest light, and that area in particular does look too light now you mention it. I'll bear that in mind on the next one. Perhaps I would have been better off putting the main shadow block in darker right at the start.

Thanks again.

[Allan Rahbek]

Paul,
I think that this is a very fine self portrait, you have come close to the likeness.
You will see that you get more freedom and ease when you have practiced this tight practice for some time.
When you are satisfied with the likeness I would recommend to look at the space around the head and try to incorporate the values of the surrounding room.

[Paul Foxton]

Thanks Allan. I'll bear your suggestion about the surrounding values in mind. Everything I do at the moment is geared towards eye training, to me that's first base. I've only recently started to concentrate on value, and am finding that there's a lot more to it than meets the eye, so to speak.

A good way of practicing with values, I've found, is to do small still life drawings. At the moment I do roughly one a day, small two hour drawings. They're teaching me a lot about relative value and how to deal with the necessarily narrow range of values we can get on paper compared to what we see in nature. At first I was obsessed with matching the values I saw as closely as I could. Increasingly I'm thinking that the picture needs to have it's own logic of value relationships, and that should be worked out at the start. I think it will still be some time before I successfully apply it to a portrait drawing.

Of course, I realise that there are many different approaches, but I think that doing this is helping me to get a more convincing feeling of light.

Here's a pic of one of the little drawings, so you can see what I'm talking about. On this one, I took the highlight on the bowl as the lightest light and worked down from there.

[Sharon Knettell]

Paul,

This a beautifully rendered, thoughtful and unpretentious piece. The nose really comes forward.

Often we go overboard trying to weigh our art down with heavy and portentious meaning. Guilty as charged. It is refreshing to see something done simply for its own-sake.

I like your handling of charcoal. I seem to have a heavy hand with it. What paper and charcoal pencils are you using.

That said, I do think the shadow side is a bit too wide. I use a transparent ruler with grids to measure. It really helps me a lot. It is about 2" wide x 12" long marked with red lines.

[Lon Haverly]

I like your style, Paul. I like a drawing that looked easy and relaxed. I like the mix of line and mass, and the clear breaks between light and shadow.

Good work.