Home › Forums › Explore Subjects › Portraiture › Portraiture Forum Library Archives › Portrait Challenge — July 2010
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July 1, 2010 at 11:24 pm #448414
Here is a selection of photos I’ve taken that I think will offer a few different challenges in portraiture. I look forward to seeing what you all choose to do, taking off from these.
Our first subject is the lovely and charming Edith. She is an artist, seamstress and costume creator, who makes a variety of historical and/or whimsical outfits. Here, she is wearing a Steampunk ensemble she created herself and wore to pose for the weekly portraiture workshop I attend. The skirt is part of an 1880’s dress she made from a Harpers Bazaar picture.
I decided to first show you the whole pose, so you get an idea of the dress and pose. Then I’ve got a variety of head shots, some from different angles. Also two nice close-ups of Edith’s face and profile after she had finished posing. Finishing off with a shot of her walking, in the dress and a coat she made.
la belle Edith:
Next, are two photos of a musician friend of mine who was busking in front of the Bridgehead coffee shop during our annual Westfest — a fun local weekend arts festival held near where I live. Guy is a wonderful musician, and here he is playing and singing the blues.
I welcome you to do a headshot or to do more of the body if you want — decide what challenge suits you best! :thumbsup:Guy del Villano:
Finally, I thought this photo of my daughter and her friend (heading off to see some live music at Westfest) would provide a nice challenge of portraying two people together — though you can just do one of the girls if you prefer. Again, the challenge is yours to decide on.
Skye & Kelly:
So — use whatever medium you choose, in whatever size you prefer. If you can let us know what medium and size you are doing, that would be great. Work-in-progress shots are always appreciated, too. :thumbsup:
Cheers, Lauren
https://www.facebook.com/LaurenFosterMacLeod/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauren.fosterm/July 2, 2010 at 3:58 am #508580Wow, Lauren – what variety! A million possibilities for portraiture and figure work, I wonder if I’ll be able to exploit at least a couple. I’d love to! Beautiful pictures too :thumbsup:
Thank you so much for hosting this month’s challenge
Btw, I thought this might be helpful – for people using the firefox browser: I use this addon(browser plugin) which helps me take screenshots of the entire web page (i.e., even parts above/below what’s visible on screen). It is automatically saved as a jpeg or png file in a folder of my choice, which relieves me of the labor of having to save the pictures individually. You may want to give it a try. I’m sure there are many other free programs available but I have only used this one so far.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10367/
July 2, 2010 at 4:59 am #508603Great references Lauren, must find the time to do a couple oh these.
John
Web site www.johnsteadman.weebly.com
July 2, 2010 at 8:29 am #508524Great great reference material Laurie! I would love to do the one of the woman in the hat, if I get time, after Sept. Man does she remind me of Nancy Kerrigan a bit, that figure skater.
Lovely images!
JocelynJuly 2, 2010 at 11:18 am #508531Wonderful set of faces/figures. I am planning on getting to work on one or two of these. Thanks to Lauren and to Roy for the Firefox info
Pat
Pat's Website
"Artists help us to see what is secretly there." John O'Donohue, page 248 of his book - "Eternal Echoes"July 2, 2010 at 7:03 pm #508635:clap::clap::clap:
Lauren, what a great array of opportunities you’ve given us!:) I’m going to have to take some time to figure out which I would like to do first, because I know I’ll have to do more than one! :thumbsup:Nancy http://nancyparkfineart.com
All human beings are dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together. - Jack KerouacJuly 2, 2010 at 8:27 pm #508550Here is my attempt of doing a pencil sketch of Edith.
I’ve started with 2H graphite in a sketch pad….8×10. I’m trying to do it the method that Andrew Loomis does……..anything to improve my proportions. I use to just start the eye and work out from there but I’m looking for any method that can speed me up.
I can see I’ll be busy in this thread for a while……great photos to sketch from!____________________________________________
July 2, 2010 at 11:40 pm #508591i love these, can anyone enter with any media?
vanessa
July 3, 2010 at 3:48 am #508613Oh wow Lauren, these are wonderful references, thank you so much!!
Coincidentally I wanted to try the Reiley method and Edith’s right-side profile is a great fit. I also hope to get some time for the second musician ref., it’s such a good photo! Wish I could take photographs half as good as yours!Camton, thanks for sharing your drawing process, so far it looks beautiful. If you’ll decide to improve the likeness at some point, I would suggest that it’s basically about relative measuring from one point to another.
July 3, 2010 at 4:14 am #508564Great ref pics, I look forward to joining in the fun too
Gary
“It’s never too late to be who you might have been. —George Eliot aka Mary Ann EvansJuly 3, 2010 at 1:33 pm #508551Hi MSegev….thanks for the comments. I’m curious about the Reiley method…never heard about it before and would love to know more.
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July 3, 2010 at 3:02 pm #508525Any media is fine, it is totally open to anything. It’s a self challenge really
July 3, 2010 at 3:22 pm #508527Hi, folks,
I’m glad you like the references. I’m looking forward to seeing what you all do with them.
Klint — thanks for wading in and starting a drawing of Edith. It is nicely rendered, but my advice would be to keep things simple first when aiming to get the structure — or construct — of the face done. From memory, I think that her brow needs a bit of widening, and perhaps the mouth is a bit large? :confused: However, I don’t have the pics of either right by me, so I’m going on visual memory, which I can’t always trust. I expect that Prosenjit & Kevin can do better here, as their structural crits are always right-on.
I plan on working on the portrait I started of Edith when she was posing for our group; also would like to tackle some of the other refs, so I hope that July will take its time a bit, and not zoom by like June did!
Happy July the 4th weekend to my American friends on WC!Cheers, Lauren
https://www.facebook.com/LaurenFosterMacLeod/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauren.fosterm/July 3, 2010 at 10:20 pm #508592heres my attempt, lovely photos
prismacolor and pastels on matte board
13 x 20
thanks for lookingvanessa
July 3, 2010 at 10:26 pm #508552Looks so good drkhorse2323…..I’ll have to give pastels a try someday.
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