Make all your portrait drawings better by practicing this step
Posted by Vincent Keeling on
Today I want to introduce you to a wonderful art teacher called Stephen Bauman who is to my mind is one of the best online teachers out there, particularly if you’re interested in improving your portrait drawing and painting. To give you an idea of his calibre he spent some 12 years as an instructor in the prestigious Florence Academy of Art, so highly qualified.
He now teaches primarily online sharing his knowledge free via YouTube and paid content on his very affordable Patreon channel. And for book lovers among you he’s also recently released a book called “The Art of Portraiture”.
Will put links below.
Ok so this video is a short one Stephen put up on youtube that covers, what I think is one of the most important tips for getting better at portraits. The nub of the idea is that the most critical part of a portrait is the block-in; that early stage of the drawing process when we establish the general proportions. And the trouble is that many of us rarely practice this crucial skill.
In the video Stephen mentions that how in the Atelier world portrait drawings can often take 30 hours, and the problem with this, is that the block-in stage represents only a small fraction of this time, so if one only practices it at the beginning of a long drawing or painting, you never really get the opportunity to get good at it.
And sadly, if you haven’t built the skills to lay in an accurate block-in, your portrait is almost doomed from the start. Thus, Stephen’s early insight in his career is that block-in drawings should be practiced regularly and diligently, like going to gym.
The upside being, that time spent at this crucial skill will lead to not only a far better outcome when you embark on longer form portrait drawings or paintings, but also simple represents a much more efficient way to learn.
The only additional bit I’d like to add to this is that I believe there’s also great value in pushing the time limits into a much shorter range, than the one to two hours Stephen mentions in the video. For instance, in life drawing sessions there are often warm-ups where you only have a few minutes to get something down. It really pushes your brain to work at a level that you at first think is impossible, but with practice you start to see progress.
Personally, when it comes to head drawings one of my favourite exercises is to set a timer for 5 minutes, and then do five or six of them in 25-30 mins. With such a short time my expectations of producing anything impressive are low, so it feels more fun and low pressure, and then the beauty is that when you have longer, even 10 or 20 minutes per drawing if feels almost leisurely.
Anyway, this more an extra to the excellent teaching and advice of Stephen here.
Thanks for reading!
Vincent Keeling
PS. And as ever if you like the content of Stephen's videos please show some love and support anyway you can. Even likes and comments on his videos helps:) But also excellent affordable videos on Patreon, which I signed up for a few years ago and can highly recommend!
And if you fancy being kept up to date with lots more free tips, techniques and precious art info just click on the link below, sign-up and join the gang! Thanks again! Vincent
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STEPHEN BAUMAN LINKS
LINK TO ART VIDEO
“Make all your portrait drawings better by practicing this step”
LINK TO PATREON
Stephen Bauman's art classes on Patreon
LINK TO ART BOOK
