Welcome to Gaia! ::

The best thing that I think you can do for yourself is to head to your local library or bookstore and research how to draw the human figure. The book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" is a great resource, so I highly encourage your to look into that book. The text may be a little old (I think the book was published in the 70s), but the information it contains is incredibly useful.

For an immediate critique to help you know what you should be looking for when doing research:

Your sense of proportions is quite askew. The heads of your figures are much bigger than the bodies and the faces for the realistic drawings look very awkward -- the eyes are a bit bigger than what they should be and the placement of the nose and mouth aren't quite right.

Practice drawing the figure, then move on to practicing how to draw faces. Once you know how the human form breaks down, then you can start drawing whatever you feel like. It's not going to be easy and will definitely take quite some time, but once you know how to properly draw the human form all that's left for you to do is to spend time perfecting your techniques.


Individual critique for the Katie Holmes picture:

I can easily say that this is the best of your pictures. However, the fact that you didn't pay much attention to getting the likeness down disappoints me. If you're going to make a picture of this nature (by this I mean using photographs and the like to create the subject of your work), then you should take the proper amount of time to make sure that every detail is as accurate as you can make them, regardless of how long it takes. Just remember to keep the lineart simple -- no shading or anything of that nature -- so that you don't waste too much time preparing.

The thing that is most important when starting a painting is the foundation -- the lineart/drawing -- that you'll be working with. If the lineart/drawing is off, then the final product will also be off unless you know how to correct the mistakes on the fly as you paint.



Hope that helps. If you need more advice, don't be afraid to PM me or anyone else for help. biggrin

Glad to see someone respond to this; especially a good critic like Ronin. Let me also say it's nice too see such a literate 12 year old who seems genuinely intrested in art.

I agree with Ronin that practice is one of the better points we can give you right now; much of the problems noticeable simply come from lack of expeirance. I suggest drawing from life. Get friends or family to pose for you, copy photo's from magazines, sit down in a crowded place and sketch people you find intresting ( which is a great way to meet people); they'll all help. Also, learn the correlations; many noticeably endpoints on the human body signal start points. Knowing these are useful for basic structure.

Another thing I'm going to suggest is that you draw "All over, all the time". That freaking saying has been beaten into my skull, but it is true. Lightly sketch out major shapes first, then bring it further and further into detail; don't get caught in any one place for too long. This will help unify your drawing; so that all parts seems to "belong" together.

As a last note, I have to say I disagree with one of Ronin's statements regarding your painting and partialy disagree with another. I think it's good you did not obsess over getting the likeness down. Your words

"It's supposed to be a picture of Katy Holmes, but I payed less attention to the alikeness between the picture of her and mine, and more to the colors."

were perfect. You were treating this work as it's own entity, letting it talk to you and teach you, instead of forcing it to be a copy of something else. You let it change and become your own. This is the way you learn from referencing.

As for the accuracy of the drawing, don't worry too much with a medium like acrylic paint; it's opaque, so you can change the painting as many times as you want before you finish.

Yeah, so, welcome to the guild. Can't wait to see more stuff.