Michael G's Sketchbook

[Michael Georges]

A handsome young man showed up in a white linen suit and a fedora and looked for everything like a 1950s G Man.

Focused my time on the drawing and placement of features as people have suggested, then brought it up in value very slowly so as to not loose my placements. Also gave attention to the body and head sizes.

I took my time with this and am pleased with the results.

[Allan Rahbek]

Michael,
this is so much better than the last one, one can really feel the three dimensionality in the head.
One thing that might improve this fine portrait could be to develop some softer edges in the shadow areas and also and have less contrast within shadow areas.

Keep up the good work.

[Michael Georges]

Hello Allan and thanks for your thoughtful comments and advice.

I got a book last night that was recommended to me by both Linda Brandon and someone over on the Cennini forum - it is "The Artists Complete Guide to Drawing the Head" by William Maughan.

It looks like a wonderful method guide for drawing from life and I intend to devour it and apply it to my works at OS to see if I can further improve.

[Michael Georges]

Nicole was our model in open studio tonight. I am pretty happy with this one, getting a better handle on proportions and dropping the lines and doing value-based rendering of the form. Done on Strathmore Velvet Gray paper in sanguine.

[Peter Dransfield]

Hi Michael,

I am enjoying this thread very much. In this latest drawing and in one or two of the others I wonder if you are doing axis lines to establish alignment of the features. I know that I very often put eyes to flat or I overcompensate and put one eye to high or low and ditto for alignment of lips and nostrils. I find that one way to see problems and perhaps to avoid them is to establish axis lines at the beginging of the drawing process and leave marks visible perhaps outside the edges of the face so alignment can be checked from time to time. I really think that taking a more scuptural approach to the drawing process in the early stages to establish alignment and the basic planes of the head would help you rather than to rely only on shading to establish form.

Keep up the good work.

[Mischa Milosevic]

Michael, I can really appreciate your challenges and can see definite improvement.

I am at the moment teaching one of my students to work with Sanguine. Not many understand the difficulties that this medium presents. One is to keep the pencil sharp for the details.

I tend to think that, If one does not receive instruction in this medium then one is better off working with charcoal. Why charcoal? Because it is more manageable than this red chalk. The charcoal pencils are too oily, more permanent, difficult to erase. So, charcoal sticks are best and if you can get the fusions they are the real deal because they have no hard spots, which can put a gash in your paper, and you have B, HB, H. Plus you can sharpen them to a fine point for detail work.

If you haven't tried these charcoals then it's a must and when you do you will never want any other for these are top of the line. Super Fusians.

I like charcoal because you can really push the darks which I find that Sanguin lacks and one is forced to use a darker value.

I do agree with Peter's suggestion. Have you see Green's DVD on drawing faces? If you haven't you should. He in great detail explains the proportional process and takes you to the finish.

Keep up the good work.

[Alexandra Tyng]

Michael, I don't have any more suggestions. I just wanted to tell you that I see a lot of new things emerging in this drawing. Very exciting progress!