Welcome to my Paint & Draw Magazine Article. Contributing to the magazine was very exciting! Although every single portrait is unique and tackled in slightly different ways. Therefore it depends on fur texture, length of fur etc. The fundamentals are the same in each portrait. I have written the article along with explaining the step by steps. I also took photos and scans at each stage for the magazine too.
The editor of the Draw & Paint magazine said….
Just a quick email to say thanks a lot for all your amazing work on the Paint & Draw cover workshop. It’s on sale this Thursday in WHSmith, some other supermarkets and to purchase online here: http://bit.ly/pad_issue8
I’d would officially like to thank Adam Lafosse for allowing me to create the step by step while drawing his dog Poppy. I would like to think that both Poppy and I have achieved our 15 minutes of fame. We really hope that you enjoy the paint & draw magazine article, I believe you can still purchase it, both online and digitally. If you visit the paint and draw website you can find out all of the details. In addition took some video at various stages and it has been turned into a Paint & Draw video on YouTube which I have embedded below.
Paint & Draw Magazine Article – Video
I took a number of videos for them.
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Congratulations Mel, brilliant to see your artwork in print. I’m sure it will inspire and help many future artists.
Thank you so much Karie-Ann 😀 Thank you!! I hope that everything is going well for you and you are busy busy 😀 Melanie xx
Must have been a lot of work – off to get my copy today!
Hi Hillary! 😀 Fantastic!!!! I really hope you enjoy reading it. The magazine has some lovely pieces of artwork in too 🙂 Melanie x
I’m new at portraits and find getting the likeness difficult. I work with grids to assist me but that doesn’t seem to be enough sometimes. Do you have any suggestions for this?
P.s. your work is absolutely fantastic!
Hi Courtney,
Thank you for your lovely comments, I’m so glad you enjoyed the magazine article! 😀
I use to give my students lots of techniques to use when working from photos. Gridding is quite a popular one and a good starting point. I recommend using as many of the different techniques you can, especially at the start of the drawing as getting the fundamentals is key before you start adding any tone. The basics must be correct.
The one I used to recommend a lot is the measuring technique. Lets say for instance you have sketched your dog out and you have a photo that you are working from printed the same size. Get a ruler and measure the distance between the eyes and compare it on your drawing. You can then amend if necessary. Move on to measuring another point – i.e. eye to ear, top of head to nose, diagonal from eye to cheek etc. You can almost map out and check the entire drawing to make sure its basic lines are correct.
The other I would recommend once that was done was looking at the drawing and the photo in a mirror, or upside down. These can really help show the differences as your eyes are seeing it completely differently and so you notice if there are any areas incorrect.
Spot the difference is my favourite. Lets say you felt there wasn’t something quite correct about the eye – at any stage in the drawing process. Place the photo overlapping the drawing and look between the photo of the eye and your drawing of the eye. Keep looking back and forth, just like when you are trying to do a spot the difference drawing game. Keep repeating and you ‘should’ be able to see differences between the two. You can do this on individual areas and as a whole.
Of course coupled with this, I always recommend working from life daily when you are learning as this really helps you improve your observational skills – which in turn will help when you are working from photos. I use to give my students challenges and set them 7 things to find from their home which they found interesting – something with texture, something shiny, something spiky, something odd looking etc and draw every day and date each one. Then at the end of the week compare each drawing and see if you can see improvement and development. They always did!!!!
Drawing anything from life, whether it be your coffee mug and biscuit at 11 am or a pile of washing and an iron, a discarded shoe or boot – there are so many things around us in every day life that can be drawn. You can make it interesting by placing it next to a strong light source and creating all of the lovely light and shadows, textures, shine etc. Much fun!
I really hope that helps and I wish you the best of luck with your drawings. Enjoy it and have fun!!! 🙂
Melanie x