Timed Portraits

            Art is what you make it out to be. It could be paint splatters on canvas showing your frustration on a bad day by using an array of warm colors to express this frustration. It could show melancholy and sadness with its cool ones of shades of purple and blues. I was never good with colors while I loved them I myself preferred the black, white, and its wonderful shades of gray.

I am an amateur pencil artist and digital painter mostly because my sketchbooks were confiscated by my son to doodle with his crayons. My most preferred medium became my tablet along with Corel Painter 9 especially when I can easily store pictures on my laptop and won’t get ruined by little wandering hands. And there is the beauty of Corel Painter 9 mimicking artistic medium and canvases could rival the real thing in texture so it saved me a bundle when it came to artist supplies. Most of the illustrations seen here were done with that program unless stated otherwise by me.

For years, there was always a sort of barrier between me and my art at least the level I wanted to get closer to always seemed impossible some days. It is the level most pencil artists aspire to draw in. Drawing realism from whatever it is one desire whether it’s a picture or a still life that consists of a fruit bowl. We all liked to capture the finer details and make it breath on paper just like it does in life with perfectly arranged elegance. Or we’re all like to draw a loved one with all the emotion we carry for them with each stroke of pencil to immortalize their character and humanity forever.

It’s a hard road to tread filled with many mismatched body parts and uneven limbs. Hands, those evil hands and fingers that would look nothing like real hands but more like some primordial creature. Frustration, tears, sweat, and a lot of eraser marks this is all part of the struggle to acquire realism. But it’s not impossible I should know. Here is one exercise which has helped me gain to where I am. I am by far a professional I am still a student, still learning on my own, but I think I at least have gotten a little closer to breathing life on my digital tablet by painting.

Timed portraits are my most favorite exercise to do when it comes to practicing on what I see. It helps to train your eyes in observation so you’d be able catch the minute details of your subject with as little time as possible to finish. Timed portraits are just that looking at a picture and trying to get as much detail into the paper under a certain allotted time you’ve given yourself. It could be five minutes, ten, and even half an hour to look at the reference whether it’s a photo or someone posing for you. Just stick to drawing without stopping until the time is up. Kind of like when in elementary school you were made to write about whatever on paper with nothing in mind but letting out the words. This is a similar exercise to draw what you see not what you think you see is key.

When choosing a subject to draw I have a pet peeve I follow religiously. Always use references of things I like or else I lose interest and the challenge has lost its purpose. Choose someone whom is dear to you or someone you like a lot: A movie character, a favorite musician, your mother, your father, even your child's photographs are ideal (I wouldn’t recommend drawing toddlers they are so fidgety I should know from experience). If it’s something you love dearly drawing them will become easier since you would like something nice to look at. After all, in writing its pretty much the same concept if you don’t like what you are writing about it’s likely you’ll never get it done and lose interest.

I’d recommend a stop watch, you’d lose track of time when drawing and concentrating on a subject to the point time will fly. I used to do this often when immersed in listening to music so I would go beyond the time I was supposed to stop. If you don’t have one you can even use the play list on your computer, a CD player, or your MP3 player by using the first two songs and stopping when they are finished. Perhaps, creating an entire play list to the desired time you’ve given yourself. I myself use the latter method since I don’t own a stop watch and I can concentrate on what I am doing to block out background noise of my noisy household.

I hope you have fun with this just as I do. Most of all don’t forget to practice, practice, and practice. This may be a method to help you improve on realism and observational skills but it won’t be a short cut fire way to acquire it. In order to want something you must put a lot of effort into it you’ll get there eventually just never give up! Good luck and godspeed in your perilous journey to realism!