12 Portraits - Let us observe the development in each portrait 🎨

Hello Steemians! I have been practicing watercolor because I find that painting is my weakness and especially when I make portraits, it becomes such a challenge for me.

My aim is to improve, so I painted a dozen faces for now. I am aiming for 100, hopefully I can manage!
Half a dozen faces are on queue, just waiting!

The First Twelve

The people I've painted so far

My materials are just a 36 set watercolor pallette and one flat tip paint brush and one fine tip paint brush
No pencil/ initial sketching
The sizes of these are roughly half a sheet of bond paper and smaller, ex. 3.5" x 7"

Tracking My Progress

For each person, I'll be providing a few work in progress photos and a comparison photo of each side by side and analyzing the differences so we can see the improvements. I will also be self critique skill wise.

These are all my output and observations.

No. 1

My first portrait was for a friend, I had interest in drawing curly hair so I painted this first. If you have any guesses who this is, let's see let's see.

Right! She's @hiddenblade!
For this first picture, I won't have any work in progress pictures but let us discuss how my first piece is:

More 2D
Bright colors
Exaggeration of hair
Has resemblance
not realistic
Personally, I was pretty happy with this! Although once I compared with the reference and placed them beside each other I felt it doesn't copy the realistic form of a person.

If we compare

I got the angle of the eyes 👍
Similar face shape 👍
The angle/tilting of the head is slightly different 👎

So, these are my observations. Hopefully it wl change soon. Let's see!

No. 2

Next, another volunteer!

Let's compare

There is better shading and values compared to portrait #1 (gradation) 👍
Smile is good 👍
Nose is good 👍
Face shape is ok 👍
The eyes are tilted 👎
The eyes should be a bit bigger and bit more droopy.

The eyebrows, nose and cheeks and the fave shape.

No. 3

This is @noellesevilla! My sister. She demands that I make her one too. Lol

She says it doesn't look like her. But to me it's really her. Haha! Maybe I couldn't exactly copy the picture but I suppose I paintes her with my interpretation as well.

Let's analyze

I got the smile 👍
The hairstyle 👍
The nose might be smaller in my art, not defining the nostrils much 👎
The angle and size of eyes are not same 👎

Yes maybe in the picture its different but the shape of my sister's eyes are like in my drawing haha especially when in person.

Proportions
Really, the eyes are larger and again, the position/ angle of the head and body is not same. 👎

No. 4

Next, practice does not stop. I made another portrait.
At this point i was really enjoying the art style so the progress at this point was very slow or stagnant.
Let's see the comparison pictures so we can see the main picture, the reference and the painting.

As we observe here the angles are not really the same as in the reference.
there's a slight resemblance but it's not a hundred percent copy. I think, without sketching - it really affects the structure of your painting. Hopefully next time maybe i could sketch more so there's more accuracy but i need to save time and also this is a form of intensive practice.

No. 5

Let's double the effort and try something a bit more. Flesh tone and shading.

In this collage, I think I did a pretry balanced work here, although there's a slight difference in the final outcome.

Let's compare!

The eye color is too dark👎
Eye angle again is different👎
The flow of the hair 👎
Ear shape (although its not noticable) 👎
But overall this is a close one! 👍🎨

Okay this is a big leap! This portrait is bigger than the others and took some more time.
I think this a plus on accuracy ✔️ so thats good!

This is my favorite! It's magical, colorful and the subject is very beautiful and innocent. Precious children ♥️💖

Progress photo

Let's compare

PhotoGrid_1531663321738.jpg
OBSERVATION:

One: Face angle slightly differs 👎
Two: Distance of chin to shoulder is different 👎
Three: Slope of the back is a bit different 👎
But!
I think the face is similar 👍
The expression too 👍
The colors harmonize and are vibrant 💖👍

No. 7

In this painting i was able to copy the expression the posing and the smile but some of the angles of the face are still wrong.👎
I was able to maintain good shading I suppose 👍

No. 8

This was made really quick, so there's a lot of error and less of focusing and measuring.

No. 9

DARNA!
No this is not wonderwoman! This is Darna, a filipino comic character. May seem like a wonderwoman rip off. Tsk. I drew my friend wjo dressed up like her.

Process photos

I enjoyed making this a lot!

In my painting, she is facing front more rather than to the side
She is looking at the audience (changes I made deliberately)
Eyes are blue.
I think this looks like her even if I made some changes 👍✔️

No. 10

Another curly! This is my funny friend alfred.

Let's look at a comparison picture!

Ive identified that I draw eyes upward rather than drooping. I have to be more aware next time! ✔️👍 Self correction!
I also draw faces rounder, have to pay more attention and observe shapes! ✔️👍

No. 11

Who could this be?
You wont be able to tell because I wasn't able to copy too well although skillwise I believe I've made a big step again here.

Comparison Picture

Here's to help you spot the difference 😹

Here's the process anyway

Can we compare no.1 and no.12?
I see a lot of improvement. Around this time, when I made this, I have gotten used to my palette, process, flow, water control and mixing.

👌 OK! ONE MORE TO GO!
I tried making two watercolor portraits and failed but I made a successful one and I'm pretty proud of it.

St. Bernadette Subirous
A friend from instagram requested art. And i made this for him. It was an old popular black and white photo of Bernadette Subirous.

Process photos

Theres not much pictures cause I focus a lot and forget ro take much pics. I am used to making skin tone now so I applied colors and imagined it.

And ending like this

👎 In my art, her face is more oval than squarish
👍 I'd like to think I've captured her essence a lot.

✔️I've learned a lot about mistakes I do repetitively and now that I'm aware, I can look out for them and not repeat them.
✔️I have explored different art styles.
✔️Improved techniques.
✔️ I can keep on growing!

What do you think?

✏️Does practice really help a lot?
✏️ What art techniques do you use?
✏️Any comments, suggestions and critique feel free to drop them below!

This exercise helped me establish a routine and ending up loving painting. Hopefully I can develop more accuracy and consistency.

THANK YOU FOR WALKING WITH ME ON TODAY'S ART JOURNEY!

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