Nicole Kidman

This represents something of a triumph for me. I have managed to produce something approaching a likeness of Nicole Kidman! I don't know why but I seem to struggle with beautiful women - I just don't seem to be able to make the leap from sort of like to passable likeness. Kidman is someone I have been working on, off and on, for months and finally I appear to have started to get the feel for the face. It has been a struggle - who said artists have it easy!

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Why draw?

As the one or two followers may be aware over the past few weeks I have been using Nicole Kidman's image as an academic exercise to try and explore portrait further. On the whole it has been a bit of a failure apart from the fact I have learnt a great deal so may be it hasn't after all (I. Managed to contradict myself in the same sentence - something of a record even for me!)

Anyway, Ms Kidman. I thought I would give it one final go and use a version of the camera obscurer technique probably used by artist such as Vermeer. Only I don't have such a machine or couldn't be arsed to build one. So what I ended up doing was drawing over the photograph to leave an impression on the page below which worked really well. However, once I started to work on the drawing I found the whole exercise pointless - almost like painting by numbers. In the end I gave up trying to make a realistic copy and just let go with the oils pastels. I think the result is very interesting. But it did start me asking why I want to draw?

Now this is a very interesting question for me. I can make very professional?? Photographs so making interesting image isn't the reason why I do it. I guess, in part, it is the challenge but this doesn't really answer the question. In the end I really do believe it is something deeper than this - I just need to do it. The genie is out of the bottle and I can't help myself indeed it has become such an obsession that I'm loosing interest in photography. I have no idea whether this will last but at the moment the idea of making a photograph is becoming more and more boring. Strange how life works out.

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Nicole Kidman and Zire

First an apology. What a complete arse I am. There I said it. I am a real bumpkin. Yesterday I wrote, if that is the correct way to describe my ramblings in this blog, about the app/magazine Zire when actually I meant Zite. If you have been following this blog for any length of time, and you deserve a medal if you amongst such a self selecting group, you will know that that I rawly check what I write. Why do I no do this you would be quite right in asking? Well the truth is I'm lazy mixed with word blindness which means that even when I do check my work I usually miss quite obvious blunders - there probably are some grammatical and typological errors in this post but I only ever notice them after they have been written by which time I have moved on and you will have read them anyway so I can safely ignore such mistakes. Laziness you see is I'm very good at even if it means I come across s a bit of a buffer.

Anyway enough grovelling onto the afore mention antipodean actress Nicole Kidman. Well I'm at it again and I'm making a big effort to make a likeness of the beauty and here in is my problem. I have great difficulty making any such likeness of photographs of beautiful women. When it comes to real beautiful people I seem t able to produce an acceptable likeness but photos less so. So the image of Ms Kidman is once again to be subject to such torture or perhaps it is me who will be the tortured soul in all this rather than a piece of paper with some ink printed on it. So I'm doing a bit more self flagellation oh the joys of trying to master the craft of drawing.

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The female face

I've been trying to understand the female face over the past few days- this is not some sort of mars and Venus experiment but rather to better understand how to improve my drawings. The problem for me has been trying to draw Nicole Kidman from the front. She has a a very pronounced jaw line which every time I tried to capture resulted in her face becoming very masculine. Now Ms Kidman may be many things but masculine is not one of them. So why were my drawings producing such results?

In an effort to answer this I traced Ms Kidman's outline in brushes and examined the result. The most striking thing for me was to notice the relationship between the jaw line and the eyes. In many of my drawings the eyes were too hard and perhaps not big enough. The result of this was to make the jaw line more pronounced Nd therefore more masculine. Well that is my analysis at the moment and I will only tell if this is true by applying the lessons and seeing what come out.

One final thing is this drawing. It is a very simple traced outline of Ms Kidman's face which I have shaded and turned into an original image which doesn't look much like the original. So is this plagiarism or is it an original art work? I think it is the latter, I would say that wouldn't I, but the reason for this is that whilst has the outline of well known face the resultant work bares nor resemblance to the original photo. In short I have tried to make a likeness of the person rather than the photo of the person. Not sure what this all means but it is my excuse and I'm stick in to it.

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Oh dear

This actually looks better than the real drawing but it just didn't work. More swearing and stamping of feet on h part. However, there is only one thing to do is start all over again. Oh dear.

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Long way to go

This is the start of yet another drawing of Nicole Kidman. I have to keep reminding myself why I am persisting with drawing just one person all week. Well I think the reason is that I want to produce the best drawing I can in a week and I have got it in my head that the longer I look at some one's picture the better the chance I have to make this drawing. The problem with this is that the best likeness I produced was rig at the start of the process so I'm not sure where all this is going. Anyway, here's the start of a drawing that doesn't look like Kidman's been too photoshoped. Wonder how this will turn out?

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Inspired by Ms N Kidman

This started off with thing in mind and then moved away from that. To start off with I was trying to make a drawing of Nicole Kidman but as things went on I decided to drop this in favour of a drawing inspired by Nicole Kidman. I suppose in part is a lack of technical expertise but also in part a realisation that was I was producing had merit in it's own right. Now what that merit might be is for others to comment on. I enjoyed creating this and I think it is interesting and that is all that matters to me.

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Releasing the frustration

After I made the last drawing that went so spectacularly wrong I drew this cartoon sketch which low and behold produced a better likeness in 5 minutes than I managed in over an hour of work and toil. Now there are many reasons for this, perhaps the most important is that I knew the face I was trying to capture so very well that when it came to the cartoon I was able to draw it with better accuracy.

Anyway, I like this and I'm particularly taken by the deep blue eyes. Now I know that Kidman's eyes are a much lighter blue but this blue seems to work better with the drawing.

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Utter Frustration

Reworking the drawing in a digital format has lowered my frustration with this. I spent almost two hours trying to get this right and in the end I failed miserably. My aim was to make a really good likeness from a small photograph of the actress Nicole Kidman - boy did I fail! However, once I moved it into a digital domain I was able to recover something really quite interesting. Out of frustration perhaps something good has come - I just wish I could have produced what I set out to do.

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The one that got away

Well this is based on Nicole Kidman and I suppose from a distance it may be a bit of likeness and I must say I am disappointed in that. However, the drawing was such a small scale that I don't think I have the correct control, too big and cumbersome hands I'm afraid, to really produce the fine detail needed to move from almost to actual likeness. This being said I really like the drawing because whilst she isn't Kidman she is and altogether more striking women who certainly means business.

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Nicole Kidman no 2

Next attempt and not bad - however must learn not to press too hard when making the first prep lines and marks!

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Nicole Kidman

Strange how things work out. Yesterday I was planning to spend the week working on new drawings of the model in the portrait course. Then the obvious struck me - she may see the results and they might not be very flattering as I was basing them one three quick sketches - I wouldn't be happy with that. Anyway, I'm sure I'll be making more drawings of the model over the next few weeks so by the end I'm sure I'll be sick and tired working with her features, beautiful as they no doubtfully are.

So what top do? Well I was wondering through the images of my contacts on Flickr and I found one of a drawing of Nicole Kidman. Suddenly I was inspired to work on her for a while. This is the first result of this flash of inspiration. I like it and just hope it leads to some eve more interesting drawings over the next few days.

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