#potrait art

some of the portraits i made over 23/24 for practise :--3

i used to run a weekly portrait club where we would all draw the same person and take requests but i got too tired :'--)

I'm a self taught. It's mean internet and spite. Jumping from one group chat to another, skimming community notes for tips and trick, diving into whatever art influencer post to study their technique. And get lost in the process. Like lost lost.

At some point, I decided to be a potrait artist. Dunno where's that comes from, because I clearly spent 2,5 miserable years trying to perfect the technique, and hate it. The thing is, when you trying to teach yourself blindly, sometimes it's hard to differentiate between people's personal preference and a genuine tutorial. I get it to my head that potrait art need to be oil paint or pencil black and white only for it to peak. It need to be smooth and have perfect accurate shade, it must be "lifelike". Well, wrong. Took me another 2 years to dismantling that mindset.

I'm trying too hard to copy a photo and drawing a perfect line, I forgot to capture the subtle emotion of the eyes. A slight tilt of the lips that convey a lot. I'm reaching the peak of that smooth pencil technique, but my art stare back at me dead in the eyes. Then I have a moment of crisis. Lol. Thinking maybe I'm not good enough. Turns out, it's not that, just a matter of wrong expectation. I'm trying to fit myself into other's preference.

So I picked up my paint again and start to slap colors. Put a wild cool shade of purple, blue, and green across skintone. Sharpening my color pencils and scratch a rainbow into someone's hair. Dip a delicate brush and craft a soulful eyes. I start exaggerating my lines, a messy scribble, chasing the emotion instead of perfect contour. Then it burst alive.

I love textures.

It was stupid to confined myself to only smooth black and white value, smudge so perfectly it gave me an itch to bite something. I'm all textured paper, rough oil pastels, rainbow pencils, and vibrant paint. That's all I need to make it more enjoyable.

It's a learning curves I guess. And possibly a turning point. I love a good story in a single drawing, it's in the emotion across someone's face and their body language. That's how I dive into illustration, to tell a story. Funny how it start this way, with countless potrait and failed study of a completely different branch.

I still come back to potrait frequently. For practice, nothing serious. Just a way to wind up and have a nice stretch before tackling bigger project. Afterall, human faces is a very fascinating canvas. Something so small so delicated that can tell a thousand things at the same time.

WIP. Nyx, Child of the horde, and my beloved Entrapdak's fankid <3

Also up in Patreon for all members!

Day 39/365 of creating art everyday for a year!! my inspiration has gone far far away and I feel like every piece has been rushed at the moment, but I still made it in time to post today! sorry that the eyes of the drawing are so huge, I didn't realise I drew them like that until posting