Drawing Advice Needed :) (1 Viewer)

[Pandamonium99]

Hi all!

I need some advice on a few topics:

1. What are your thoughts on mixed drawing mediums? I am currently working with charcoal, but having trouble with getting refined shapes and gentle shading. I was considering using pencil to rectafy this but wanted someone elses opinion/with experience on this topic. Also, would pen and charcoal work?

2. I am having trouble making my portraits appear 3D realistic. The cheeks and the nose are areas I need to work on as they appear flat. Any advice?

Thanks for any tips guys

 

[strawberrye]

I actually used mixed media for my HSC visual arts major work which was like 4 years ago haha-time flies by. I have never used pen with charcoal, however, I think if you want to use them together, if you are using charcoal first, you should make sure you have some sort of fixating agent-which you can buy from art shops, because if you spray this on things that are easy to smudge like colour pastel and charcoal, you basically won't smudge it, and it will be easier to add other lines like pen without mixing the pen with charcoal.

There's also two types of charcoal-there is a soft type which is useful for shading/colouring in areas, and there is a hard type of charcoal-which is much better for refined lines. But if you are having problems with handling charcoal, maybe you can try other mediums like acrylic paint or pencil which may be easier to handle.

As for your second question, to make stuff look realistic-the most important thing is shading-you need to make sure your shading is gradual and there is enough contrast so there is enough depth and perspective-maybe try watching some youtube videos-it can help you. If you are having a lot of trouble making stuff look realistic-you might want to make your ideas more abstract, basically play to your own strengths, make the art work for you, not you work for the art.

You may also consider using coloured drawing paper (pastel) with colour pastels-they have some textures of charcoal but allows you to have greater diversity of colour. Charcoal and pen are challenging particularly if you want to make your portraits realistic, not sure whether these are ideal mediums to combine, it might be easier to combine charcoal with colour pastels than anything else.. but ask your teacher, or trust yourself Good luck!