some old junk I learned in college art and on my own..

[unlegendary]

25 yrs or so ago I studied art and was pretty darned good at portraits and dug up some old material I wanted to share.. I have nerve damage so I no longer draw, but I still think about it..
The image below, yes, my ugly mug with red eyes (no, they're not REALLY red, just blood shot on some occasions) has some lines on it to sort of illustrate a few proportions that are pretty much universal in human faces. Not all of them are there, just the ones that I thought of off hand, but if you'll notice that the lower eyelid almost always lines up with the tops of the ears, the mouth line with the bottom of the ears. The center of the eyes (pupils) line up with the outermost edges of the mouth and another lesser known proportion is how the distance between the bottom eyelid and the eyebrows is real close to the same distance from the mouth line to the bottom of the nose. Not everyones face is the same obviously and a few faces are way off proportion.. In fact, I had a friend years ago who claimed he was taller than he really was because of the proportions in his face. His eyes sat higher in his forehead than most making him appear much taller.  :o
The face isn't a prefect oval obviously and mine is way off mainly because i had my jaw broken years ago and my eyes look a bit skewed because of how many times they were swollen shut over the years.. I have no teeth under those chicken lips and blah, blah, blah..(I used to like to fight until I finally realized that I suck at it and some other people don't.  )
If I think of more proportions, if anyone is interested I'll post them.. You can also look at Leonardo Da Vinci's drawings to see many other proportions and there are many he never wrote about. There are proportions in hands in relation to other body parts and so on.. If you know of any feel free to toss in too..
OK, I'm going back to crappy TV..  If you want to learn how to draw portraits here's one method..Some call it the technical method, but it worked for me.
Enjoy.

[JenniLynne]

That's cool unlegendary.... Not too shabby a picture either, even with the red eyes..... I'm sorry you're not able to draw anymore..... Thanks for sharing your artistic talents with us....


Peace &  :ht:,
Jenni

[unlegendary]

LOL..You need better glasses..
Anyway, I remember back then the people i knew who thought they were artists, but really stank would say things like, "You're just a technician..Anyone can draw like that..." Ironically I noticed they never did it though.. Oh well.. I thought it was funny that NOBODY asked them to draw their portraits, but anyone could do it..
I miss being able to draw like I used to..Alcohol played a role and smashing my arm into concrete didn't help much either and my kids destroying my art supplies really didn't help.. I wonder if they ever plan to pay me back for ruining a few hundred dollars worth of brushes, but I kinda doubt it..I'm SURE not holding my breath on THAT.

[JenniLynne]

LOL..You need better glasses..
Anyway, I remember back then the people i knew who thought they were artists, but really stank would say things like, \"You're just a technician..Anyone can draw like that...\" Ironically I noticed they never did it though.. Oh well.. I thought it was funny that NOBODY asked them to draw their portraits, but anyone could do it..
I miss being able to draw like I used to..Alcohol played a role and smashing my arm into concrete didn't help much either and my kids destroying my art supplies really didn't help.. I wonder if they ever plan to pay me back for ruining a few hundred dollars worth of brushes, but I kinda doubt it..I'm SURE not holding my breath on THAT.

My glasses are just fine thank you....  I have a friend who paints a lot (he supervised and told my daughter what to do on her painting which you can see in the gallery) and he does a lot of paintings of people..... He does other kinds of paintings, but a lot of his paintings are of people, I may take a picture of the painting he did where it has my face and my daughter's face (for some reason there's 2 of my daughter's face in the painting, I think it's all in the style of painting he was doing) in it..... I could probably do it, but with my artistic abilities (which I have absolutely no artistic abilities, at least drawing wise), I doubt it would be any good.....  One word on the kids destroying the brushes.... Ouch.....  Oh yeah, one final thing.... Just because you don't see the beauty (or handsomeness) in the picture, doesn't mean that others (in this case, me) can't......

Peace &  :ht:,
Jenni

[unlegendary]

My dad used to tell me he's seen better heads on a nickel beer.. As I age I tend to agree with him, but being I'm not gay I don't find it to surprising that I don't find much attractive in a mans face, mine especially.  None the less I do appreciate the compliment.. (it IS a compliment isn't it? LOL)
As I've aged I've learned to more appreciate others version of art more. When I was younger I saw art and often thought it was crap probably more because I wanted art to reflect reality more than abstract ideas and concepts. I wanted to specialize in technical illustrations at one time and was pretty good at it too. I was never into cubism or some of the harder to interpret styles. Artists such as Jackson Pollack I thought were mere crackpots who got lucky then when I did begin rubbing elbows with the well to do when I was invited to "showings" as they were called I learned in many circles the art didn't matter near as much as the artists interaction with his/her sponsors or, well, customers.
Later I wanted to become a chef and found that world to be even worse. People will pay huge amounts to eat so little as long as it's arranged on the plate pretty and the "atmosphere" of the place they're eating is "pretty"...the same goes with automobiles. After all, what does a car do? It goes from point A to point B. A broken down luxury automobile gets you there no faster than a broken down Ford Pinto..At that point they're both just piles of potential rust.
I dropped back into my old collegiate artist digs a few years ago and hanging in the gallery were gigantic paintings of penises and the style was crap more so than the content..
Yep..most of it's still crap. LOL I haven't changed as much as I thought.

[JenniLynne]

My dad used to tell me he's seen better heads on a nickel beer.. As I age I tend to agree with him, but being I'm not gay I don't find it to surprising that I don't find much attractive in a mans face, mine especially.  None the less I do appreciate the compliment.. (it IS a compliment isn't it? LOL)
As I've aged I've learned to more appreciate others version of art more. When I was younger I saw art and often thought it was crap probably more because I wanted art to reflect reality more than abstract ideas and concepts. I wanted to specialize in technical illustrations at one time and was pretty good at it too. I was never into cubism or some of the harder to interpret styles. Artists such as Jackson Pollack I thought were mere crackpots who got lucky then when I did begin rubbing elbows with the well to do when I was invited to \"showings\" as they were called I learned in many circles the art didn't matter near as much as the artists interaction with his/her sponsors or, well, customers.
Later I wanted to become a chef and found that world to be even worse. People will pay huge amounts to eat so little as long as it's arranged on the plate pretty and the \"atmosphere\" of the place they're eating is \"pretty\"...the same goes with automobiles. After all, what does a car do? It goes from point A to point B. A broken down luxury automobile gets you there no faster than a broken down Ford Pinto..At that point they're both just piles of potential rust.
I dropped back into my old collegiate artist digs a few years ago and hanging in the gallery were gigantic paintings of penises and the style was crap more so than the content..
Yep..most of it's still crap. LOL I haven't changed as much as I thought.

Yes, it was a compliment.... 

Peace &  :ht:,
Jenni

[unlegendary]

It's OK I guess.. after all..I'm fond of goldfish which are basically just carp..  :-\

I raised mine from just little fry and a few are probably 10" by now.. Most people think large goldfish are ugly fish, but I think they're quite beautiful..

The gold and white ones are koi and the others plain goldfish known as comets.
The big koi is about 13" or was last summer and most gf are now about 8-10"
These pictures are two years ago when the pond got some killer algae in it that killed about 7 in a few days.. I have 15 left.
Trying to catch them is NO FUN.. That little net I used when they were babies just bends over like catching a St Bernard in one.. LOL

[JenniLynne]

It's OK I guess.. after all..I'm fond of goldfish which are basically just carp..  :-\

I raised mine from just little fry and a few are probably 10\" by now.. Most people think large goldfish are ugly fish, but I think they're quite beautiful..

The gold and white ones are koi and the others plain goldfish known as comets.
The big koi is about 13\" or was last summer and most gf are now about 8-10\"
These pictures are two years ago when the pond got some killer algae in it that killed about 7 in a few days.. I have 15 left.
Trying to catch them is NO FUN.. That little net I used when they were babies just bends over like catching a St Bernard in one.. LOL

I like the goldfish..... Least yours aren't suicidal...... We have goldfish (well, we now have one goldfish)..... We only have one because every other goldfish we put in the tank seem to "enjoy" jumping our of the back of the tank..... I keep finding their bodies behind the tank......

Peace &  :ht:,
Jenni

[unlegendary]

Yikes! You must have then in to small of a tank or something.. How many did you have in what size tank?
I hear you should give a fish 10 gallons of water per inch of body size minimum.. Of course I have 15 big fish in a 100 gallon pond and they've been fine outside for a long time..
They also tell you to change water frequently which is really a nono.. don't EVER put them in plain tap water.. What I do is to pour fresh water in a barrel (because of the size of our pond) and let it sit in there for several days before adding it to the fish's water.. That lets the chlorine disipate..
Also goldfish LOVE plants..the more the better..  In our pond we have two plants that have both completely outgrown their pots.. In fact they both stick up above the water level by about 3 feet they'r so large, but they help to produce oxygen.. Fish, like us need LOTS of oxygen.. Do you have a bubbler or filter?

Fish can swim fast and when thy go upwards to fast that's how they get out.. I doubt its intentional, but they're likely to cramped up in there..
My pond hasn't been cleaned out in over a year now.. I let leaves and sticks just rot in the bottom, but it's a pond and not an aquarium.. If you're using them for display they likely won't live long, but if you treat them the way they would live in nature they'll live long happy lives.


The plant below is an iris and has grown in my pond bout 4 yrs.. it's HUGE (for an iris), about 4 ft wide, 3 high roughly and the one directly behind it is even bigger now.. These pictures are from last spring.. They give the fish a place to hide from predators, plenty of oxygen in addition to the filter and waterfall i have set up and they give them a place to go to get out of the hot summer sun.. A dinky aquarium is really a death sentence to them..
The aquarium above was a 50 gal deal, but only used when i had to clean out the pond last year..

The image would help, huh?

[unlegendary]

I was going to mention that I ran across a book my grandmother, also a prolific artist gave to me when I was really just way to young to appreciate it.. My copy was a big, ugly cloth bound version.. This one is online at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14264/142...4264-h.htm  It's called The Practice and Science Of Drawing

Author: Harold Speed

Somewhat interesting, but very dry as well and definitely to dry for an 8 yr old kid.  :