[Art Addiction]

Why does my painting of Claudia Schiffer look like a guy? Photo reference is on the left, painting is on the right. I'm looking for advice on how to improve this.
http://www.artaddiction.net/images/cschiffer1.jpg

- Brian

[geoman2k]

its mainly proportions that's you problem. for a female look, you need: bigger eyes, a less noticable indent above the upper lip, slightly bigger lips, a more subtle nose (less shadding on the bridge) and a smaller chin. its a good pic, just work on your sizes and placement a little more, you'll get it.

[morphgfx]

1st:
the lighting on most celeb photos like this is realy bad from pov of an artist. try to find photos with better light.

2nd:
you have heavy problems with proportions. drawing portraits from photo isn't that good, especially if you're a beginner in drawing the human head. i don't know why people always start with human head or figure. start drawing the basic shapes in black and white, then get some more complex forms and draw them... go on studying the human head with help of a few good books... hey and don't start in color... then draw your friends FROM LIFE... study facial features... and so on. its the same with pupils in 1st grade at school... they start reading very simple books and do not start with shakespeare or something.
i don't say photo-reference is evil... every artist uses photo-ref (or any other kind of reference) and i don't want to say drawing or painting from photos is stupid, because it isn't when you know HOW TO USE THE PHOTO and you've a good one (i remember ron lemen wrote an article about this some time ago...its anywhere in the old forum; and Craig Mullins is running a cool thread about this currently too). but drawing from photo is definetly the wrong way to learn drawing the human head or drawing in general.

3rd: most important thing of course is to practice, practice, practice! so when you want to draw a portraiture of miss schiffer, because drawing beautyful woman is fun then do it! but you shouldn't forget about the basics.

-morphgfx.

[mk]

ok, you have seen that your portrait doesent look like you want... throw it away... next Photo (from C.Schiffer) and again try to copy it..throw it away... next Photo and so on...repeat that until you are satified with it. Allways throw the old works away, dont try to correct an image if its nearlly finished, like the head. Begin a new one. And if you are really sure what you paint return to the Schiffer Pic.
Another way is use a Grid. copy the forms not the parts. there is no eye there are only some lines and curves.
When the lines do absoulutely what you want, throw all you know away, and begin with the color. With every Pic you do you learn more. And these Pics dont have to be final art works, because every next image is better than all others you made. Yes, that means if you paint something you allready know the next one is better

A little Story:
There was an artist somewhere. Many Ppls liked his works. One day an man was in his studio and asked for a picture of a cat. The artist said okay, give me a week.
After a week the man returned and asked for the pic. The artist had nothing. But he asked for two weeks more.
The man returned after two weeks. The artist had still nothing and asked for more time...
After a couple of weeks the man returned and asked for the cat-pic.
The artist took a pencil and drew a cat in 20 Sec. on a white paper. The image was nearlly perfect. So, the man asked why he had wait so long for that picture.
The artist opened a cabinet and thousands cats pictures fell on the floor. "Everything needs its time."

Cheers MK

[Art Addiction]

Thank you for the advice everyone.

Actually, Morph, I've already taken three semester's worth of life drawing courses and one semester's worth of life painting courses. Maybe it's time for a refresher course.


- Brian