My Drawing

I have to say I am impressed. I am going to be serious here and try to be helpful. I love the hair. I think you did a better job on the left side hair than the right..the left looks more wispy. Maybe some taller head. With the angle the forehead could look like that but not with the current shading. You handled the shading very well. No dark lines around any thing but also not overly smudgy. Liking the nose quit a bit. It is, for me an over all success that shows some real skill and attention that will only lead to even better results later.

But I am disappointed.....You are not an artist here, Why?...The request lines are open and Xan is waiting to take your call.

That is damn good. Looks like the pencil drawings of magazine girls I used to do back in the day. My best advice is to draw an undersketch to really get the overall shapes, sizes and positions of the features, before you add all the beautiful detail. That'll help you keep in mind the overarching form when filling in the other bits.

Boshuda

Your FIRST?. Sir, then I must say you have got to continue. That just makes this even more awesome. Let the adventure begin...

I've gotta say, the eyes are very very good. It can be really difficult to render eyes identically across the vertical axis, but they look perfect here. The only flaw is the overall face shape, but it's a minor one at that.

Boshuda

I'm not sure I can add much of any use that hasn't been said, haha, but I most certainly have to add my voice to the chorus of 'MAKE MORE!!!'. Your drawing is absolutely lovely!! Rather than offer anything about the picture itself, I'll see if I can impart something useful about drawing in general. :D

Your sister is bang on- drawing from reference (be it life models, photos, off the TV, looking at yourself in the mirror...) is THE way to learn! Even then, though, there are some pitfalls- you have to train yourself to draw exactly what you SEE, and not what you 'think' you see.

I'm sure someone else can do a better job of describing it than me, but basically when it comes to subjects that you're very familiar with (ie, human beings!), your brain already 'knows' things about how they're 'supposed' to look. You KNOW that human beings have eyes, a nose and a mouth, and so long as they're in vaguely the right place you have a recognisable face-- and yet it's so easy for things to be 'not quite right'. This is because it is very easy to simply fix on 'eyes, nose and mouth' rather than treating them critically as objects of particular proportion and relation to one another!

This is where 'negative space' drawing exercises can be brilliant; where rather than drawing the actual subject, you create the form of the subject by blocking out the 'empty space' around it. It is a lot harder than just drawing the subject, but because you're drawing something that your brain doesn't have any preconceived notions about, it forces you to be more critical about the shapes you're making, and is a great way to train yourself to draw what you see. In the same way, if you're drawing from a photograph- turn it upside down, and render the figure that way! What you end up with, when you turn it right way up, will probably look hilariously 'off', but it is a GREAT exercise.

Good point, Tuss! Whenever I draw on paper (I still do this! I did it two days ago!) I hold it up to the light and look at it inverted (look through it from the back). Or, hold it up to a mirror, or just rotate it and look at it sideways or upside down. A new vantage point will give you a totally new perspective on the piece, a fresh set of eyes. And suddenly you'll notice all the little mistakes, all the little tweaks that don't look quiiiite right. They're easy to miss, so tricks like this can help you brain spot them.

Boshuda

Great start, Xan! Be sure to keep drawing, you'll only continue to get better :)

I'm with Asok & Tuss, a mirror will do wonders for seeing anything that may be off proportionally or compositionally. Stepping back to look at your drawing from a distance is a good habit while working too. Have you ever looked at the book 'Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain'? It is full of great exercises like Tuss mentions, tricks to get your mind to learn how to draw what you see instead of literal symbols of what you think you are looking at. I highly recommend it.

Xan - great scott! You have GOT to keep drawing!! :oD

Only advice I can give is what my art teacher in college gave me - work from the general to the specific. This has pretty much been said already, but it's a really true adage. I've had many a picture ruined because I drew the mose beautiful eye... in the wrong place, and couldn't bring myself to rub it out.

Big hugs dude - this is really good!