Creating portraits with Xara

[Gare]

I started this thread because a lot of us basically hijacked Frances' Self-Portrait thread in the Xara Art Gallery, even though she's an excellent sport about it, thanks Frances.

I did this using some of the techniques we covered here. I began with a well-lit image of the woman, then used an Exposure setting in a different software program to almost posterize the photo, wiping out a lot of the midtones, to leave only the brightest brights and the shadow areas. This was what I was looking for both artistically and cosmetically. I wanted to reduce Tamara's portrait to the most flattering essentials we can see in a woman's face: a small recognition of the nose, most of the emphasis and detail on the eyes, a few shadows in the hair, and the rest of the portrait rendered using negative space and a lot of suggested shape without actually bothering to draw it.



Then came the auto-tracing, which required an awful lot of clean-up and manual drawing to replace awkward shapes, and then with a four color palette in violets, I recolored the image from a greyscale copy, exactly as I did with the Piper picture right here

At best, drawings that are intended to mimic photos almost parallel the photo itself (unless you draw each grain of silver, or pixel). But as the artist gradually backs away from every single detail, there grows room for interpretation, and the 2¢ the artist contributes to shape and ultimately make the drawing a part of their own portfolio. Naturally, you need to take the photo yourself or ask for permission, but my point is: sometimes, an artistic treatment of a subject is to reveal as little as you can while still retaining the meaning of the portrait and the message you want to share. The photo of Tamara had her posed a little shy, and I pushed that to the logical extreme...much of her face is so shy, it's hidden.

My Best,

Gary


My Best,

Gary