Friday 22 November 2013

40 portraits challenge

This week I'm going to share some sketches I've been working on in the past week. I participate in a challenge on Facebook initiated by Gritti Jane from "The Trodden Path", to do 40 portraits. There is no time limit, so everyone works at their own pace. Here are the first eight portraits I posted:

A mixed media painting I have posted before, inspired by Lucas Cranach the elder:


The beauty queen contestant, drawn in charcoal on A2 sized water color paper x 3:




Four charcoal drawings on smooth A3 sized paper. It is very interesting how these turn out and it almost feels like sculpting when I do them, because I have three items in my hand at the same time as I try to build up the features (charcoal-pencil, rubber, and paper wiper):





This challenge suits me very well, as I really want to improve my drawing skills, especially getting a likeness  to the model/photo.
Thank you for visiting and have a wonderful weekend!

Sharing with Paint Party Friday





21 comments:

  1. All your faces have such unique character and I see you have captured such varied expressions! Great sketches!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like your portraits.very much, specially the first one, the eyes are so full och meaning. Your coal drawings are done with feeling too, they all have some thought in their minds. It makes me to look at them and wonder, what are they thinking. That is good.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your portraits are always wonderful. I love the mixed media one, but the charcoal sketches have such personality and vibrancy. I always thought drawing was like sculpting, carving shapes out of paper. It's also like writing, describing with lines. There's always a good story in your art.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great portraits. Very good works, so nicely captured. Thank you for sharing and keep creating!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I adore your mixed media painting, and the charcoals are wonderful, they are so full of feeling.

    ReplyDelete
  6. wunderbare Zeichnungen und das gemalte Gesicht ist traumhaft!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Die Zeichnungen sind toll, die Gesichte fantastisch! LG, Valerie

    ReplyDelete
  8. you are so talented-what a great collection of portraits!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Impressive, I'm with Linda you are SOOO talented!! Amazing collection of faces...love them all!! Wow. You capture so many emotions, and features!! Very distinct!!

    Hugs Giggles

    ReplyDelete
  10. Lots of emotions in all these faces Ilona. Very creative person you are.:)

    ReplyDelete
  11. WOW I am 'blown away' by your wonderful faces. So much talent.Happy PPF.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Großartige Portraits! Sie sind alle sehr ausdrucksstark und beeindruckend! Großartige Kunst!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Wow,was für großartige portraits,wunderschön gezeichnet,ganz großartige kunst,gefällt sehr,sehr ausdruckstark und lebendig.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Your mixed media painting is beautiful, and it gave me pleasure to look at it. Your charcoal paintings are lovely, so varied and in such different styles. I called my husband in to look at them because he is experimenting with charcoal for the first time, and he was so impressed, and interested because he always says he is 'sculpting' not drawing. He also asked what liquid you used to create the drips on the third one.

    ReplyDelete
  15. What a lovely lot of work you are doing! My favorite of these sketches is the reddish middle one of the woman wearing a coat, with long hair. She seems really solid (plus her joyous expression is marvelous). I scrolled down a ways through previous entries, where you said you were working on achieving "likenesses"--and this is something I think about pretty regularly. I draw a lot of people, and usually don't worry about them looking like the person I'm drawing, because it seems like whenever I do, they become stilted somehow. What I noticed in some of those drawings was how small the woman's chin was--out of proportionately small--which made me think of how we tend to draw the parts we're interested in larger than the parts we're not all that interested in--not intentionally, but because that's where all of our attention is. A typical beginner head (which yours certainly are not) is all face, because that's what they're seeing. They don't see that there's all that head above the face as well as the face itself. So you had a lot of drawings with unusually small chins. Maybe this person had an unusually small chin, though if she was doing well in beauty contests, that's pretty unlikely. But that problem went away in later drawings.

    This is a fine fine fine collection, and I really enjoyed looking at them....

    ReplyDelete
  16. There is always such depth and masterfulness to all your work. Blessings!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Lovely, soulful, expressive pieces.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Wow..outstanding...beautiful....these faces are all so deeply expressive...moving..emotional..magical...and spiritual...I can sense and feel so much life and story behind them all! So wonderfully done..the shading is sublime..awesome!!
    hugs...gorgeous and powerful works!!
    Victoria

    ReplyDelete
  19. You are showing some nice emotion in the portraits...very nice!

    ReplyDelete
  20. You are quite the portraitist. Missing you at SWTK.

    ReplyDelete
  21. These are wonderful, I love your portraits. They are full of beauty with a wonderful realism.

    ReplyDelete

Your comments make me happy!