Happy Earth Day!

The majority of last night was spent working on the shadows on S’s face. Previously, they were much, much too dark and the contrast between the highlighted portions and the shadows was too stark. Didn’t like it. At all. I think I blame the reference image I was working on. The contrast was turned up a little too much. It was a bit harsh. Now, I think she looks more natural. More S like.

I think the thing that helped me the most was that I switched my pencil. Initially, I had been using a 2B - which is freaking awesome for going to those dark places. But with the light nuances of skin, I tend to be a little heavy handed. I need a pencil that doesn’t go that dark. It’s kind of a preventative thing. Last night I switched to a 2H. If you look at her nose and the right corner (the viewer’s right) of her mouth, you can see that its much more nuanced than previous update photos. At least I think so.

The plan is to try and have her mouth finished tonight. Or at least have a layer of graphite laid down. I’d like to be able to start her hair this weekend since I know it’s going to take… for-ever.

But, I think if I keep being as productive as I have been over the last couple days that I should have the piece finished by the middle of May, which completely works because the show submission deadline is June 15th. I’ll have plenty of time to frame and photograph it.

I really need to work on my update photos. I’m having a rough time photographing my stuff. My lighting is bad, my shutter speed is too slow, or, I just don’t get an accurate representative of the line work/shading. I usually end up doing a lot of post when I take these pesky photos and the post isn’t even that accurate. Really, I’m talking about the fact that I can’t get the paper the right colour of white. In my head, I seem to think that if I get the white right then everything else will fall into place. Heh. I tried some of S†’s suggestions regarding white balance, but I think I just need to practice some more.  Practice my white balance and finding the right f-stop. Shutter speeds kick my ass. Just saying.

I should probably do some research about photographing art because I’m a firm believer that its a much different process than taking your average photo. And maybe, ya know, learn how to really use Lightroom.