For this drawing I’m continuing with the theme of me being too busy to spend a long time on a drawing.
And this is why I set daily minimums so low, because sometimes life is so busy that doing “great” work all the time is just impossible. As long as I do at least 30 minutes of drawing a day I can keep my hand, eye and mind connected and constantly familiar with transferring the three dimensional world in to two dimensions.
Now, most people would think that 30 minutes minimum a day wouldn’t be worth it but they would be wrong. Just look at my first post back in january and you can see extreme improvement within only 6 months. Personally I feel my ability to render life is light years ahead of then. But, I do set goals for each and every drawing and I try to achieve something not matter how small.
For this drawing I wanted to explore the differences between life and real time digital reproduction. So I set up a simple comparison. For real life I chose my own face and for the digital reproduction I setup a small ledge on my mirror to hold my iPhone.
I was able to draw a self portrait looking at both life and digital life while comparing and contrasting each. Here is what I found.
Life
Positives:
- Possibility of extreme detail is almost limitless.
- Tons of little subtle differences in value and color.
- Its life, viewing it directly is the only direct way to emotional response.
Negatives:
- Almost too much detail, its easy to get lost in details and get the larger shapes inaccurate.
- So much subtle differences in value and color that confusion was increased and judging larger masses of similar color or value becomes ver difficult.
Digital Life
Positives:
- Easier to judge shapes and angles.
- Easier to see RELATIVE values.
- Incorrect drawing stands out and is easy to spot.
- The best way to disconnect yourself from the subject and even your drawing is through digital reproduction.
Negatives:
- Achieving the real values is impossible, all the lights were blown out and too white while the shadows lacked depth and were like black holes.
- Color is completely wrong, the only way to achieve true color is to do studies from life, then use digital for placement.
Eventually I believe I will have to rely on printed or digital media to inform a longer piece so with this study I came up with a few general rules. And we all know how rules work in art… break them when you can.
- If your dealing with color in your final piece, always, always, always reference the color from real life.
- Having trouble with drawing? Reference digital media and the errors will almost smack you in the face.
- If you want huge amounts of detail or beautiful subtle values and colors in your final work, then work only from life.
- Only choose a subject from life, but then use digital reproduction to sketch in quick and accurate masses of value and color.
- Never work from only reproductions gather at LEAST 50% of your information from life.
- Break every or any rule above if the final work demands it.
The Drawing
Not a great drawing, its not even finished. But that doesn’t matter, I gathered so much information from this in such a short time that it was WELL worth it.
To the right of my head in the mirror was the tray that I taped up so it would cradle the iPhone for a direct comparison on screen of my face through the front facing camera.