Helen's Class 4

Helen's class focused on portraiture. With all my years of drawing I have attempted very few faces, in fact when I started doing the tiny etched glass figures I realized although the horses were simple for me, the riders were a struggle. So began work on my own species. A few years of a few hours monthly working on figure drawing has helped allot.
We first looked at face proportions. The most meaningful for me was the arch of the upper lid being higher toward the nose and lower lid lower toward the outside. Planes of the nose, not forgetting the thickness of the lid. A good refresher on proportions. My practice page. She then had us draw each other applying the principals. I'm not real happy with the results... its supposed to be a struggle! Next she had us squint or take off glasses and start just with the shadows we saw and try to work bigger. This was hard to start with no oval reference or anything but I think my results were better and I'm encouraged to try more faces. Nether drawing looks like the person except for a few subtle things. It was a good exercise class time went by fast