2.5

This week I drew another face; this time I learned from the book though. It took me through step by step instructions on how to draw each of the features and then it showed me how to shade each part in. Needless to say, this picture turned out much better than my previous drawing and I am very happy about it.

The first thing that I improved on where the eyes. The overall shape is much more realistic. I also put some eyelashes on and I made the pupils look like they were looking the same direction. In my previous drawing you would have thought that she had a lazy eye or something.

I also spend a lot more time fixing the hair and shaping the skull. In my last drawing I had just colored in two lines on either side of her face. In this one the hair flows a bit more freely. You can also see where the light and dark spots are in the hair.

Lastly, the way I colored her face took a long time . I had to make several spots slightly darker than the rest of her face to show how it is structured. I also shaded the spots that were naturally darker such as under the eyes and the lips. Unlike in my first drawing, I learned that the lips and the irises are much darker on the outside then gradually become lighter as they go in.

2.4

Last week I started on a butterfly. As mentioned in my last blog, it did not get finished in time to put it on there. Instead I'll put it on this blog.

It took a long time to do this. Like an unbelievable amount of time. The hardest part was making both sides of the butterfly symmetrical. There was so much detail in the picture I was looking off of, and I had to make sure that both sides looked the same. The color is what really makes the picture look good though. I used the oil pastels again. I made the mistake of putting the black parts down first, so when I went to put the colored parts next the black parts, I had trouble not smudging the black into the color.

Lastly, I decided to do a background. I put some petals under it- like it was sitting on a flower, then I put leaves around it. The background at first looked too waxy, like you could tell it was made with pastels, which gave it a fake look. So, I scraped it off with a blade of scissors, and found that the oil pastels had basically dyed the paper where I had drawn. I continued to scrap it all off until the background was a much lighter color. I think the background looks nice, but I am not sure if it looks better with or without it, so I put both pictures:

I have started learning how to draw faces. This week I drew my first face, hopefully by the time I am done, I will be able to see if I have improved. It turned out pretty good. I really liked the way the coloring turned out since I was able to see which parts of the face were darker than the other parts, then made them blend nicely together. Most of the facial features are also symmetrical and realistic- especially the nose and the lips. However, you may notice the eyes are slightly asymmetrical. If you think they are bad now, you should have seen them before I worked on them. At first I forgot to make it look like part of the eyelids were closed, so it looked like it just saw a ghost or something. It took me quite a while to fix that issue.

Last, but not least, I drew a wolf. I looked at a picture on the internet of a wolf running and I thought it was really cool, so I decided to try and draw it. It was pretty simple to draw. After all, I have started to get the hang of drawing animals. The only thing that challenged me was drawing the head, but it eventually turned out fine. When I was done, I sketched it in really roughly; you can definitely see the strokes of my pencil. It is a bit different from how I shaded in my other animals, but I like it; it captures the spirit of the animal.

Blog 2.3

This week I decided to draw some insects- so far I have drawn a bee. Honestly, I have to say I did not enjoy drawing it. It took forever to draw (about two hours) and in the end it did not turn out to be the best.

I started the picture by looking out of the book, then when I decided the book did not have enough detailed instructions, I turned to google images, and proceeded to looking off a picture. The proportions of the bee turned out fine, but the way I colored in the fluffy body made it look like a five year old drew it- sorry for the lack of a better description.

On a positive note, the wings turned out to be pretty good looking. First I made very thin lines that branched out from the body. Then I made the shading darker on the edges then gradually got lighter as I went in. It surprisingly turned out to look pretty realistic.

Before I drew my main picture, I drew a prototype one, basically to see if I could improve. This one was with no instruction from the book, and I will be honest, it only took me about 10-15 min.  The second picture defiantly looks better from the first though.

I also started on a butterfly on Wednesday night. I worked on it for about an hour then, and tonight I worked on it for about two hours.  Even so, it is safe to say that I am not even half way done with it. I was hoping to put it on this blog, but I guess I will have to wait tell next week's. So far, my butterfly looks pretty good, I just hope I can color it in in a way that shows off its beauty.