Recent efforts

[Michele Rushworth]

Aha -- another useful tip! Steven, you tape foil over windows to block the light? What a great idea!

The window in my studio is too big and I was wondering if I should go out and buy those blinds that pull up from the bottom. Sounds like a box of aluminum foil and a roll of masking tape would to the trick just fine. Thanks!

[Jeff Fuchs]

Now I wish I hadn't started this thread!

Working in social services, I see aluminum foil in every seedy trailer park and project apartment I go to. Drug abusers and child abusers seem to love darkness in their houses. To me, foil in windows has a very sinister connotation. I don't care how dark I need a room to be, aluminum foil will NEVER show in my windows.

Do your neighbors a favor. Put mat board in your windows, and if you still need it darker, put foil on the inside, so it doesn't show from the street.

[Michele Rushworth]

I thought I'd cover the outside of the foil with something white. Mat board seems like a good idea. I agree that foil would look awful to the neighbors. Then again, we are drug abusers here -- our drug of choice happens to be chocolate.

[Jeff Fuchs]

I knew it!

And what does that chocolate come wrapped in? FOIL!

Get help, Michele. You're too talented to throw your life away like that!

[John Zeissig]

Hi Jeff,

I know you

[Jeff Fuchs]

John,

Thanks for taking so much time to reply with illustrations!

I'm definitely going to have to get a new monitor. My 7 year old monitor doesn't display correctly, so I can't adjust my scans to match the original. Several comments have been made about the lack of contrast. Here at the office (new monitor), I can see why they say that. Both of these drawings are on pure white paper, and the blacks are quite dense. The shadowed part of Janice's hair, on both sides of her neck, is very black.

As for the eyeglass thing. I debate with myself whether I should include the refraction or not. I don't know what the consensus is among artists. I'll just have to try it both ways and decide which works better for me. One advantage is that the glasses are implied, and don't have to be rendered in as much detail. I've seen fine portraits that barely hint at the glasses. Taking advantage of optics can help with this.

Image size that you see is about 9"x12". This is the size of my scanner bed. The actual paper is larger. Since I didn't draw backgrounds, only white space was cropped.

And yes, I'm left handed.

Thanks again.

[Steven Sweeney]

I debate with myself whether I should include the refraction or not.

I've wretched over this, and my personal decision was to draw the figure as in nature and then put the glasses on. Otherwise, you're completely dictated by the lens prescription, angle of view, angle of light and so on. I've found that skewing the figure in nature to somehow "reflect" the lens mechanics always looks "wrong".

(I will eventually get to the second drawing, which is also very nice.)

[John Zeissig]

I suppose, Steven, that I just consider nature to be the ensemble of subject, glasses, and any other accessories that happen to be included in the portrait. It's easy to explain away a lack of a refractive offset by hypothesizing that the eyeglass prescription is a relatively mild one. I only brought it up because Jeff's self-portrait maximizes my expectations of seeing the effect: a strong contour seen through the margin of the lens. Since I know how it usually looks, I've come to expect to see it; and if I don't see it I wonder why.

A few weeks ago I did sixteen rapid mirror self-portraits in an afternoon, so, after reading your post, I went and looked at them to see how I handled this. I regret to report that in every instance I avoided the issue by doing a relatively straight-ahead view. Not a single one has a strong vertical contrast behind a lens margin. I wasn't aware of deliberately avoiding the issue, but who knows? I guess the best advice is to be aware of the situations where the refractive offset phenomenon is likely to occur and either avoid them or deal with it on a case-by-case basis.

[Jeff Fuchs]

Now that I have a new monitor, I should be able to post scans that are more true to the original (not that that's a good thing ).

Here's Janice with the truer contrast and values. No changes have been made to the drawing. In fact, this is the same scan, with altered contrast and brightness.

[John Zeissig]

Hi Jeff,

That's quite a difference on my screen! I think somebody earlier commented on the good treatment of the hair, although It wasn't obvious to me what they meant. Now I can see that the outer margin of the hair has regions that appear almost stippled and sparkly as well as more distinct edges. This is very effective.

The overall feeling of the drawing hasn't changed for me, but the greatest increase in contrast is around the hair and face. I think this is as it should be, given that that is the center of interest. The two things that I might be inclined to experiment with would be a slight darkening of the shadow where her leg disappears into the skirt, and lifting a few highlights on the folds of the dress on the upper chest on her left. That part of her torso would be brought forward with the shoulder, and I think this might help.

But as I said earlier, I'd consider keeping this one pretty close to where it is right now. I like it. It looks like a drawing's supposed to look.