Saturday, May 16, 2009

Elizabeth Taylor


This was actually just meant as a warm-up done earlier today before embarking on some more elaborate sketching and studies, but I ended up spending more time than anticipated on this and then I sort of didn't draw any more all day ;)

The image actually started out rather terrible, with eyes way too big among other things. I hadn't done a referenced female portrait for weeks, so there was definitely some rustiness going on. Managed to salvage the whole thing rather well imho, and I experienced a relatively rare sense of... "sensing" the face/shapes/image in general after working for maybe 20 minutes. I think it's partly from spending all that time and attention on the same thing, but also from actually trying to work in shades more than I usually do.
Trying to shade surfaces is obviously more intimate than just drawing outlines. That, and the time aspect, made me kind of "zoom in" gradually - at first the nose was just a vague scribble, but towards the end I was very aware of all the angles and shapes going on there, working very carefully to refine some parts of the nostrils.

Likeness and accuracy towards the reference isn't great. Mainly her real face is sort of longer. I started refinement and detail work without really REALLY leaning back and going over the whole thing multiple times to iron out all the proportions. At first I was actually just going to do a quick study of the eyes and brows.

Reference here: http://www.dn.se/dnbok/recension-allan-klynne-kleopatra-liv-och-legend-1.867231

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