The last thing I felt like doing yesterday was drawing for a daily challenge after a busy weekend teaching and drawing a ton.
Funny thing tho', I knew exactly what I was going to draw from the moment I woke up even tho' I got to my drawing VERY late at night. EARS.
One will always be judged by the weakest link in one's painting it seems to me and in portraiture it is often the ear, (followed closely by hands) that gets not just overlooked but darn right ignored. As if it doesn't matter. But that ear sure is close to that face one is so carefully painting. Not that hard to learn the anatomy of an ear. Why don't people do it? The ear 'handout' in class often finds its way to the 'lost and not found' department of learning.
Once the drawing shapes are down, an ear can be painted quite simply with no need for a medical text book rendering. Three values for the light and only two in the dark. Say more with less. Morgan Weistling, www.morganweistling.com, taught me this. His simplification of ears are a great study. Actually anything by this uber-talented young master is a great study. Period.
I have been teaching for a while now on a very regular basis and this last weekend teaching my workshop with some great work going on in the room, but perhaps not on the ears, reminded me of this eerie ear neglect. So I decided to give myself an earful of my own teaching medicine and just remind myself of that ear.
Practice what you preach.
2 comments:
I noticed that you used a series of straight lines to give the illusion of roundness... I think I remember you TRYING to teach me that way back when.
Yes, I do. Always...you observed the lesson well dear pal.
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