Portraits and Caricature as a Second Income?

I recently had a query about drawing and painting portraits, perhaps as a second income. As you probably know I don't paint a lot of portraits but I have done a few.

One of the projects in Part Three of the Acrylic Painting Course is a portrait. I chose painting a portrait as I was trying to cover a wide range of subjects. Also, the painting is about working the whole of the picture at the same time. Usually in landscapes I paint in layers from the distance to the foreground. But in the portrait painting the whole of the subject is worked at the same time.


Top Portrait Tip

However one important tip I can give you is to make your subject look good. Pretty much everyone would prefer to have a portrait that flatters them. Don't go too far but make them look nice.

I was watching a program on the television about a famous portrait painter of the 18th century (whose name I cannot remember) and the commentator said that his portraits were sought after because he always made the sitter look a little better than they really did appear.

As the advert says - "You but on a really good day!"

If you want to do portraits as a business you may want to take this into consideration.


Caricature Video Clip

A variation on portrait painting is drawing caricatures of people. These are often a lot quicker to do and you can produce one for sale in a fairly short timescale compared to painting a portrait.

This is something I haven't done. I rather paint than draw! However if you're interested you can have a look at this short video.

It is an interesting video clip of Graeme Biddle drawing a caricature that you may find worth watching, I enjoyed it! He sells a course on how to draw them and has this video on his website. It's only about 6½ minutes long.

Here is the link so you can see it too

http://72c7adq0sfkhh4q2zabc1o7ya2.hop.clickbank.net/


I can imagine that once you master this skill that you'll be a very popular person with all your friends and family asking you to draw one for them.

I also signed up and received the free first part of his course. It has a further video link in it where he draws a more realistic face. This video runs for about 7 minutes and makes the whole process look quite straight forward.

You get further chapters at no cost too. I just received a video on using cartoon software to help with looking at the proportions of the face. I haven't tried it yet but it looks like it will be fun.





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How to Draw a basic Daffodil

I saw this really easy way to draw daffodils and wanted to share it with you.

Steps

1. Draw a circle the size you want the flower to be

2. Draw a triangle in the circle

3. Draw a second triangle as shown

4. Draw a circle in the centre

5. Draw around the points of the triangles to give the petals. Use an uneven line to draw around the circle and add a second ring for the outside edge of the trumpet.

6. Depending on the size of the daffodil you may want to add stamens. You would not see these if the daffodil was further away.

If you want to draw a daffodil that is not ‘straight on’ here’s how to do it.

Draw a Daffodil on the angle

Steps

1a. Start with an oval instead of a circle. Draw in the 2 triangles as before. Draw an oval instead of a circle in the centre.

2a. Use the top and bottom of the small centre oval and draw short straight lines to form the trumpet. The end of the trumpet is a slightly larger oval.

3a. Draw around the points of the triangles to give the petals. Use an uneven line to draw around the ‘trumpet end oval’ and add a larger second ring for the outside edge of the trumpet.

4a. Again adding stamens will depend on how far away the flower is.


Important Points and Tips

These steps are for a basic daffodil shape. Notice that all the petals of one of the triangles are to the front of all the petals on the other triangle. In other words every second petal is to the front and drawn to the base of the trumpet part.

Daffodils come in a wide variety.
Things you can change for different looks are –

* The shape of the petals

* The width of the petals

* The diameter of the trumpet

* The length of the trumpet

* The colour of the flowers. Daffodils can be white, shades of yellow, orange and combinations of these colours. Have a look at some gardening books or catalogues for ideas.

In my garden

I have some small yellow alpine daffodils open in the garden just now; they have very narrow petals with a round end. There is hardly any overlap of the petals. The trumpet is narrow but quite long.

On the other hand I have some taller daffodils that have short wide petals and a very short wide trumpet. There is a great variety in both shape and size. This makes them easier to draw.

If you wanted to add leaves to your drawing just add some straight narrow leaves with rounded ends.

Top Tip

For a more natural look - angle the flower so that it is ‘looking’ to the ground slightly. The weight of the trumpet usually causes a lot of the flowers to be on this angle.

Try drawing a bunch of daffodils and see how easy this is to do.