When pictures go bad

Sometimes, not matter how hard I try I draw an image so unbelievably awful that I feel like destroying it. This image was one of those. I've posted it because I believe that I should keep all the bad drawings - and learn from them.

First of all - I'm not very good at portraits in any medium so I didn't expect this to be brilliant. The end result was more dissapointing than I expected it to be however. The subject was a friend of mine.

I accept the fact that I made a fair few mistakes with this one - and it's to be expected when I'm drawing in pen anyway. It's a permanent medium and therefore unforgiving when I make drastic mistakes. One of the mistakes in this one I tried to cover up but just ended up making it worse (hint - look for a particularly dark area).

Here's my critique (so you know why I hate it):

Proportion: The eyes are slightly too large

Proportion: The nose isn't wide enough

Proportion: Because the nose wasn't right, the mouth isn't wide enough

Proportion: The lips are too full

Shading: Too scribbly instead of clean cross-hatching

Shading: Possibly too dark - definitely in places.

Shading: I screwed up the shading on one side of the mouth

Error: I've made the subject look slightly cross eyed (oops)

Media: The damn pen started making blobby marks during the shading. I guess it serves me right for not using a decent drawing pen. Sorry Crayola Roller, I don't love you anymore.

I should probably stay away from portraits as they're so clearly not my strong point but I guess they never will be unless I keep trying to do them.

Comments

Dip pen doodles

Being a fan of ballpoints for drawing I thought I'd try out the "real thing" and got hold of a dip-pen handle and two nibs (they cost next to nothing). I already had some ink that's been sitting in my art box for years. Amazingly it's still 100% perfect. :) Over the course of the last couple of days I created a couple of doodles. One of them is the picture above. A doodle is indeed all it is - I just picked up the pen and idly started tracing shapes and let the pen decide what they would become. The tree was drawn on a bit of white card. Media: Dip pen with Hiro Leonardt 6H nib. Windsor & Newton inks and a small brush.

Ostrich (a.k.a. more fun with a pen)

Still in the mood to draw things with my crayola roller ball I thought I'd tackle that most hairy and long-necked of birds; the ostrich. This was drawn on slightly better quality paper than the cat in the previous post but the pen was the same. Now, if only I had a 0.25mm pen... ;)

Kitty cat meow!

I had a spare 90 minutes and wanted to try the challenge of drawing a furry animal. I've never drawn a cat before and a good friend of mine is kitty-crazy so I thought I'd give it a go. This was drawn using a 0.7mm Crayola Pro Liquid Ink Roller. It's a nice pen - very smooth flow and good black ink but it's a bit wide to draw with really. A 0.5mm would have been better. I'm quite pleased with the end result. It's not perfect but for my first kitty I think it's OK. :)

Phil's Doodles

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