Over the summer, I wanted to draw portraits from photo references daily using the painting program Krita. The challenge was to:
- Work quickly, aiming for usually 1 hour sessions and seldomly up to 3, depending on the time I had.
- Utilize just one layer to embrace imperfections and simulate traditional charcoal sketching.
- Stick to a consistent brush set and focus solely on portraits to hone specific skills.
- And almost all were done without preliminary sketches, pushing me to work with broad strokes to explore large values and be more expressive.
Here’s some of my favorite pieces that came out of it, in no particular order:
This exercise isn’t something I originally thought of, but was inspired by other artists who also showed great improvement in their skills while doing something similar. I highly recommend to try it with anything really.
I believe the key to get the most out of this process is to set just an hour or so to finish something small and then let it go to start on something new the next day. This routine prevents burnout and provides an opportunity to review and build upon the previous day’s work, fostering experimentation and growth.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this artwork, you can explore my art related posts with the #art tag to see more.