[Lev_0]

Following spooge's advice I bought Sargent's portrait drawings book from Dover. I began copying the first one in the book (same one as Spooge did here http://home.hawaii.rr.com/spoogestuff/copies.jpg ). The thing is the book scaled down all portraits from the original size. Most of them were done on 18 X 24 or around that dimension. Should I do the copy at the original dimension Sargent drew at or the one in the book?
I tried one at the same dimensions but there's a lot of small details and edge changes/details that are hard to get accurate at that small a size, but if I try and up the dimension then there's a new set of problems having to convert proportions.

I'm using vine charcoal and charcoal paper, chamois blending stick things, an eraser (lost my kneaded eraser gota get another), and a rag. I haven't gotten to putting in the values, getting the proportions right just with your eye is really hard and I barely know where to start.

[Les Watters]

Just scale it up. all you have to do is draw a grid on the original picture. Then draw the grid with the same # of horizontal and vertical lines on the larger sheet. Make sure you porportians are correct. then use the grid to know where everything is.

Problem with reprints is you think the super detailed painting or drawing is super detailed, when in fact it is very loose and crunchy. I heard a story about a guy who loved Rockwell, until he saw an original painting, and noticed that all that detail was 1 inch thick brush strokes on a 4'X6' canvase.
He was so impressed by the amount of detail on the reprints, and when he saw what it actually looked like he, wept. Probubly spent the rest of his life in a wild life art shop with a single hair brush saying "I can do it, I don't need a 1 inch thick brush!"
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When in doubt, black it out.

Wally Wood

[Lev_0]

Ah I never thought of that, thanks I'll try it.

[jr]

[Rubber Duck]

exactly-
well..

pearls..

[Artifex]

[Connor]

If you work from the paintings in the Louvre as a copyist, the only stipulation is it has to be a certain percentage larger or smaller than the original, but never the same size.

[jr]

yes connor it's like that in all museums that allow copying.
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[Lev_0]

I started the first one- after 4 or 5 hours of work I found a few problems hehe. I enlarged the thing 1.5 times from the original. Still not big enough to get the small variations that sargent has in his sketches..I was still in the outline/cartoon work of the copy when I stopped. I was using Charcoal paper, that was a mistake. When you apply the charcoal onto the paper there are big gaps in the texture where the charcoal doesn't sink in. I guess that's alright if you want that texture but for Sargent's work it's a different paper texture I need.

I have white 18 X 24 paper with no texture that I'll try. It's hard for me to get the good quality paper since I need to take it on the bus which means rolling it up. The good quality paper gets damaged like that and I'm guessing that's what Sargent used lol.

I did the grid thing, that helped a lot although I'm not sure if it's avoiding one of goals of the exercise of measuring things out since most of the measuring's done for you. I'll still do the grids for my first one at least. I have vine charcoal and normal charcoal but now I'm thinking I might need Conte compressed charcoal in H, HB and B. Not sure if pencils or sticks are better. Anyways in the small work I did for the few hours I learned a few things. I was comparing spooge's copy to sargent's, there are some differences you can tell at first glance that gave me some hope that it isn't easy to make it completely identical hehe.

[Connor]

Unless you're a forger why do you really give a rat's ass? Get a dark haired young girl, put her in a white dress and paint her. Study Sargent's technique and just draw what you want.

[Lev_0]

Connor- the point is to be accurate with everything in order to learn how sargent/whoever handled form, details, making marks, values etc. Copying one of their works is just the best way to do learn it.

I'm doing the copy 2X bigger than the original.. even after gridding the sheet getting the right proportions is hard. I did the outlines with line and it's hard indicating where some features are since a lot of it is value instead of line. It's hard to tell where things end/begin. I'll have to delete the lines once I start blocking in values and all, duno how well that's gona work. I spent a few hours on it and haven't gotten far lol.



Here's the original-



My start..

[Lev_0]

Ahg, overlayed them in photoshop, the jaw proportions are off, along with some other things, the top face is more close to sargent's if yo wanna see the difference from before.