I was meaning to share another drawing yesterday, but I got hooked into a lot of other things. In the morning, I watched the NBA Game 5 with my parents, then played with my 3-year-old niece and 9-month-old nephew (first cousins once-removed). In mid-afternoon, I took out my father's tape measure and recorded my bedroom's dimensions -- I've planning to do some make over that has been a long time coming -- after which I hunted local online shopping sites for materials. Toward the evening, I and @charlocked watched The Haunting of Bly Manor together via Teleparty, because we were sure we couldn't watch it by ourselves alone. (By the end of second episode, we had to mute because our hearts couldn't take the suspense.)
Somewhere in between those things, I sneaked some drawings, but I couldn't complete any. When I finally settled with one, it was already nearing midnight and I was sleepy. It bummed me out that I couldn't continue the daily streak, but in the end, I realized that I couldn't care less.
So here's one of those drawings from yesterday that I only manged to complete earlier today!
Gray
The reference for today's drawing is something I have kept in my Pinterest board for some time now. I've been seeing a lot of renditions of the portrait photo, and they were all so good. I tried drawing it around 3 months ago but stopped halfway because I was finding it hard to paint.
It was too desaturated. Finding colors and applying them was quite the challenge, and I haven't the heart to be brave with my choices back then. This time, I tried, but it has more color intensity than I should have done.
Drawing Gray
I did the base colors for each par first before moving on to painting the face. The model had an interestingly nonchalant look to her, so I couldn't help but do everything at once.
As usual, I only used one brush here, the watercolor, and adjusted the opacity and color picked in-between colors to blend. Instead of blocking all shadows and adding the lights once everything was good, I decided to paint them together, from the forehead down to the chin. I liked seeing the nose take form, and it only happens when I add the lights to its tip, the bridge, and the edges of the nostrils.
I moved on to the hair next, but used only the watercolor and pen brushes this time. I normally would use pencil to discern the strands from the highlights and shadows, but I wanted to test if I could work without it. I think it looked all right, except that it was a little "pillowy" in my opinion. I probably could have done more to fix this, but I was growing impatient (I seriously need to fix that).
The individual, more solid and sharp-looking strands were drawn with the pen tool. It made the head look a little more authentic with the messiness.
By the time I was nearing the completion of the drawing, I was trying to time myself. I said I should be able to complete the white shirt in 15 minutes, maybe even less. In the end, it took me nearly 30 minutes to even make it look semi-realistic. It was my favorite part, though, because there was more value contrast in it.
When I thought I was done, I took a break and came back, and found that there were more to polish. I guess one of the downsides of drawing in one sitting is not being able to see anything off about the drawing until you actually do a double-take and purposefully find it. I ended up darkening shadows, softening edges, blurring hair tips, and brightening parts of the highlights.
Details
- Device: Samsung Galaxy Note 10+
- Apps:
- MediBang Paint for Android
- Brushes: watercolor (at varying opacity settings); pencil (100% opacity); pen (100% opacity); blur
Notes
I'm planning to continue watching The Haunting of Bly Manor later today, so let's hope I don't incur a heart attack from the sheer suspense (and sound effects) it has.
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