January Portrait Challenge, Days 1-11
I suck at portrait drawing for two main reasons: 1) it’s par with rocket science difficulty-wise and 2) I’ve put exactly three hours of practice into it in my entire life.
Enough! January is my month to go from “is that a person?” to “hey, only the ears and chin are weird!” (Here’s week 2.)
How? I’m taking 30 minutes a day to draw a portrait. To make it easy to think of subjects, I’m drawing composers whose piano songs I’m learning, as well as performers I admire. (Like Otis Spann, a Chicago blues pianist.)
My goal is to improve my shading skills and generally work on perspective. I’m looking past my absolutely mediocre skills with optimism thanks to a Skillshare video I watched that said, “you don’t discover your talent to draw. You develop it.”
Chelsea, always helpful, pointed out that drawing a bunch of dead white guys from past centuries is straight-up odd. Nice to have feedback to keep me from getting too strange, I suppose.
DISREGARDED. I shall soldier on in all my weirdness!
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BTW, I know my first one isn’t a portrait…I decided to go full formal drawing after the 1st. This isn’t an art school dissertation, alright?! Sheesh.
This first round of portraits includes:
- Louis Armstrong – I’m learning What a Wonderful World
- Ludovico Einaudi – the esteemed/maligned modernist Italian composer. (Learned a bunch of his songs.)
- Otis Spann – badass Chicago blues pianist
- Franz Liszt – the brilliant 20th century virtuoso and composer (I’m working on his Consolations.)
- Martha Argerich – incredibly talented Argentinian pianist.
- Lang Lang – the flamboyant Chinese pianist.
- John Legend – American singer and songwriter.
- Chris Martin – lead singer for Coldplay.
- Erik Satie – the very quirky Impressionist/modern French composer.
- Yann Tiersen – French composer of the Amelie soundtrack, which has a few songs I’m learning.
- Chopin (no first name needed!) – I’m learning a bunch of his preludes and other pieces.
January Artist Portraits, Day 1-11
