While we have kind of moved on to other things in my classes, a lot of my students return to drawings of people and it is easy to understand why. I would say that it is far easier to come up with images of people because that is most of what we see around us and it is all of what we experience since we are people ourselves.
Lately a student shared a picture with me that was almost certainly drawn by looking at a still image and then doing their best to replicate it using a pencil and some decent paper.
Now I'm not going to tell anyone that their work isn't great, but this isn't really that fantastic of a replica if that was in fact what the student was attempting to do. The shadowing is ok but not great and the facial features are basically not there at all. The fact that the pitcher, whoever that is supposed to be, was wearing sunglasses in the original image makes it even easier because the eyes are the most difficult part of the body to replicate if you ask me.
Now while it seems like I am being judgmental, and there are ways to be judgmental about this particular work, I didn't say these things to that student but instead focused on praise.
You may recall how I have said that all artwork and what is determined to be good by anyone else is a purely speculative and subjective thing. No one is "right" about their opinion of what makes good art and what isn't good. While some people could view the lack of detail on the face as lazy, others could interpret it as unique and also could be what makes this particular artist unique from others. Just because something doesn't look just like the real photo that it was drawn from, doesn't mean that the artist is no good.
This is why I say that every artist should embrace their "mistakes."
While observers might be a little disappointed that something doesn't look exactly like real life, this is precisely what makes some of the most famous artists of all time unique, famous, and in some cases, very very wealthy. The lack of facial features and the unique method of shading that this student is using could be viewed as "wrong," I tend to look at it as an opportunity. It kind of depends on whether or not the student ends up doing this with all of the images of people that he makes. In my own work, especially the ones that I decide to do quickly, I tend to not focus too much on facial expressions of people that are in the scene, and this is mostly because of the fact that it is too time consuming, too easy to get wrong, and also leaves it up to the observer to determine the emotions of the people in the scene.
This is just my opinion though and just like it is with anyone, your opinion is no more valuable than anyone else's when it comes to appreciating art.
I have encouraged this student to try to make a picture of another sports icon that he is a fan of and while I didn't instruct him to do this, I am hopeful that the lack of facial features is just something that is part of all that he does.
Embrace your "mistakes." Embrace what others might consider to be inadequate and run with it. It could end up being the very thing that makes your work stand out, and therefore unique. There's nothing fun about doing art that looks exactly the same as everyone else's and this is why artists that make replica paintings all around the world tend to be a bit bored with their work, and don't generally make a very good living either. This is because they aren't actually having original thoughts, they are basically just a human Xerox and while there is definitely real talent involved with being able to do this it is kind of like being a really good cover band... You might get some recognition, but you will never be remembered since none of what you are doing is actually your own original ideas.
.jpg)