Happy birthday to moi!

After doing my last picture here which was a very mechanical attempt to achieve photorealism where my only aim way to copy the photo, I wanted to go in the opposite direction, getting back more to what I was trying to do in the intermediate boards, instead attempting the loosest attempt to draw from a reference yet, with an attempt to only use the reference without drawing the reference at all. Accuracy to the photo is not going to be a criteria in this case. It's going to be about speed, looseness, and improvisation. I just finished a lot of work, so hopefully I'll have the time to focus on something challenging.

I'm going to try to combine what I've learned from both my practice in drawing with references and inventing forms without references to make something that hopefully doesn't suck too much and doesn't require too much time spent on it (hopefully something I finish by the end of the day). By using a reference, I'm hoping the result will be more convincing and anatomically correct than some of my doodles on this board where I didn't use any references at all. By not drawing the reference directly, the end result will hopefully be something fairly different than the photo and interesting on its own. Most importantly, I'm hoping it will be a useful exercise that will help me get better.

Reference: http://hq55.com/scan/willemdafoe/01.jpg. After cropping out the text on the left, I decided to flip him horizontally. I just liked it better that way after removing all the space on the left. I don't know why I liked it better - I'm not a composition expert, but I liked the initial focus to be on the left flowing towards the right, and having the brighter portion of the face on the left seemed to do that more.

I don't really know what I'm going to end up with. I have a fantasy theme in mind: maybe a warrior or a priest or something.

first time to submit a draw. hope I get the hang of the tools soon

whatamess

I was thinking while I was painting this about how I keep my oil paints in a big tackle box and I would always squeeze the tube wrong and the seam in the back would break or the tube would get a hole in it and while I was painting I'd get all engrossed in what I was doing, squeeze the tube to replace a color I had run out of, and paint would squirt out from 3 different directions and then I figured, why bother putting the lid back on, and throw it in the box and then the tubes would stick together and dry up. I wonder if anybody else is that sloppy.

8

loosey

I hope I get the skin tones for this one right and at least get the hair to look nice...

I.... think I'll not paint something this complicated for a while...... *whew* I mean *WHEW*