A montage is somewhat like a collage. On one piece of paper you put together any number of related subjects. However, instead of pasting them onto the paper you will draw them.

A montage is often used to tell a story about the person you are drawing. It includes references to well-known events that happened in the person’s life and that were special to him or her.

Here are a few tips on how to go about putting together a montage in your pencil portraits.

Subjects – Do not overdo it. The subject surrounded by a few references will do just fine. It is easy to end up with a crowded montage that contains too many subjects and objects.

Focal Point – Do not forget that the person who is being honored should remain the center of attention. Make sure you do not let the secondary drawings overwhelm the person you who is being honored. A viewer should first and foremost see the honoree.

One way to ensure that your subject remains the focal point is to place him or her right in the center of your drawing. In addition, make sure that you use a smaller scale for the surrounding subject and objects. Another tick is to draw the surrounding object somewhat lighter and also with less detail.

Values – It is also important that you create an overall unity in terms of values. Often you will use a variety of photographs to construct your montage. These photographs will usually have different intensities and different light source locations.

So, before you start your drawing pay some attention to where you will put your darkest darks and lightest lights so that the final product has a consistent value distribution. If the values are not consistent throughout your drawing you will end up with a funny looking result.

Sizes – The sizes of the subjects and objects in the different photographs will not be consistent either. So, some will have to be drawn larger than in the photograph and others will have to be drawn smaller.

Here is where the grid technique can be very helpful. By scaling the grid size your can fairly easily scale the subjects and objects as well. If the object is to be smaller on your drawing you can draw a scaled-down grid on drawing paper first as compared to the corresponding grid on your photograph. The same is true in reverse. You can easily increase the size of a subject or object by drawing a scaled-up grid on your drawing paper. This is the old grid trick which was used by many great masters of the past.

A montage can be a precious gift to the person who is being honored. Be forewarned however, that a montage can involved a lot of work. Therefore, make sure you make a careful estimate of the time you will spend so you can charge accordingly if this is part of how you make your living.

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When it comes to multiple subjects in one pencil portraits drawing, there are two possibilities: (1) all subjects appear in one photograph; (2) the subjects appear in different photographs. We will be concerned with the second possibility.

It will not take long before you will get a request to make one portrait out of several photographs. This often happen when grandma wants to have a portrait made of all her grandchildren. This can be done but you need to be aware of a number of difficulties.

Here are a few guidelines to follow when combining photographs.

Lighting – Check the light source in each of the photographs. Your portrait drawing needs a unified light source.

You will have to adapt the lighting in some of the pictures when you draw your composite portrait. This is a difficult but necessary challenge.

All shadows and tones have to be consistent otherwise your composite portrait will have a strange look to it. This, now, is a matter of experience and knowing how a subject looks like when lighted in a certain manner. There are no shortcuts here.

You may try to find a photograph or image of some other subject where the light source is located in a suitable location and deduce from that how the shadows and values are distributed.

Gaze – Try to make all your subjects gaze in the same general direction. You can do this by adjusting the location of the irises. You do not want each subject staring in a different direction because this will make them look disjointed.

Composition – When you have different photographs you have the opportunity to create your own composition. The standard overall compositional shapes are: the circle; the rectangle; the triangle, and the square. Choose one of these and arrange the subjects within it.

Size – Another problem you will encounter is that the subject in the different photographs will be portrayed in different relative sizes. One subject will be small, the other will be large.

Therefore, you will need to go through the process of reducing all subjects to the same scale. To this end, start with the largest of the subjects and measure the distance from the mouth to the eyes. Then try to reproduce this measurement in all the other subjects.

If the subjects are of different ages, say a child and an adult, adjustments must be made in the measurements according to the known average differences of such subjects. For example, a child’s head has different average measurements than that of an adult.

Much more can be said about merging different photographs into one pencil portrait drawing but the above suggestions will point you in the right direction.

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Drawing hands takes much practice. Hands are typically quite complex with many smooth transitions between darks and lights. Shapes overlap and need to be studied very carefully to yield acceptable realism. There are also lots of edges, crevices, and creases.

Hands are much more angular than our ingrained memorized image would suggest. Therefore, it is very easy to make the mistake of portraying the hands too chubby and rounded which leads to an unnaturally rounded.

Here are a few pointers that will give you the basic memory pack for drawing hands. I mean a set of memorized issues about drawing hands that should be in the foreground of your thinking whenever you draw hands. This is a facility you should develop with each feature of a portrait such as eyes, ears, etc.

Simplify – Generally, any kind of photographic subject will have so much detail that it becomes necessary to simplify, i.e., leaving out much detail. Of course, you must develop a facility to leave out the right details and keep the important ones. This is where your artistic sensibilities play a major role. Making the right choices makes all the difference.

It is a good exercise to look at pictures in magazines and practice the simplification process. Ask yourself the question: What can I eliminate in this picture while still retaining the essence of the subject? In fact, as you get more experienced you may ask yourself the question: What should I add to obtain an even more convincing rendition of the essence of the person I am portraying?

The same is true with drawing hands in pencil portraits. The hands have usually so much detail in them that you must discard the unimportant details. At first, keep your eye on the major shapes, the so-called large masses. You do not want to miss those.

Remember, at this stage, try not to think too much of how a hand is supposed to look like, just draw the shapes as they are.

Males and Females – There are many differences between male hands and female hands. On average, male hands are larger and squarer. For example, the fingers are less tapered and thicker than those of the female. The female hand is slender and the finger tips are much more tapered compared to the male fingers. The fact that females (generally!) do not have hairy hands adds to the lightness in color.

Values – First, avoid outlining the hands at all cost. Let the edges be formed by applying the correct contrast in values. Note where one finger overlaps another and be sure to include all the cast shadows.

Also, it is very important to render the reflected light on each finger because that is what will give the finger its roundness and three-dimensional look.

Angles and Planes – Hands are surprisingly angular, not as much rounded as we sometimes think they are. The joints and knuckles have various planes to them which need to be carefully rendered.

Blending – Keep the blending of the hands very smooth. Blend the darks into the surface they belong to. This way there is no confusion as to which surface the dark line belongs to. Again, do not forget the reflected light between the fingers. This will create the illusion of roundness of the fingers.

The hands can be used to enhance the visual impact of your pencil portrait drawing. For example, the addition of hands to a baby picture makes the whole thing much more endearing. Therefore, adding hands to a portrait is always something to consider. With this, I think you can have a good start at drawing hands. And remember, practice, practice, and practice some more.

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Learning to blend is another one of those skills you need to master to become a good pencil portraits artist. Once you have a line drawing and once you have laid down the different values based on, for example, a five-value scale, you can start blending the different value areas. To blend, you can use a pencil, a tortillon, a paper tissue, and even your fingers.

Blending tips:

Soft Edges – Wherean object surface gentle curves away from the light source. Such edges change values gradually and you should blend them accordingly.

Always blend parallel to the edges of the subject area. Follow the curves of, for example, a cheek. This allows you to blend into the edges and gives a more natural and rounded look.

Hard Edges – Where two surfaces touch or overlap. The edge looks more defined. Do not actually draw lines to depict such edges. Rather, create a hard edge laying down two different values next to each other.

Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a line in nature. We become aware of lines only because of the contrasting values of two adjacent surfaces. And this is the way lines should be created in your drawings. Anything that has an actually drawn outline will look flat (i.e., planar) and will detract from the three-dimensional look of the subject.

Contrast – Contrast is a good thing. It gives life to your pencil portrait. Use your ingrained knowledge of the five-value scale to discern the correct values. An excellent trick to better perceive values is to look through squinted eyes. I also found it beneficial to draw in dusk-like lighting conditions.

Uneven Values – If you see uneven blending you can use your kneaded eraser to take off some of the darker spots and use your pencil to darken the lighter spots if needed.

Darkest Darks – If you need to create a really dark area you can build it up in layers. Start with a dark layer and spray it with workable fixative. Then put another layer on top. And, if necessary, you can repeat this process until the area is dark enough.

Kneaded Eraser – Your kneaded eraser is also a very useful tool at this stage. You can use it to draw with into a penciled area. For example, the kneaded eraser is ideal to introduce highlights on noses and hair.

From Dark to Light – Always try to blend from dark to light. Blend from the shadows into the light. Remember, the highlights are the white of the paper while the cast shadows are the blackest black you can muster.

The above guidelines should give you a good start in developing your blending skills. Now it becomes a matter of practice and experience. Find more tips about landscape in painting in the quoted resource.

Values (or tones) are, by definition, degrees of darkness and lightness. You should develop a visual sense of at least five values or tones. To help you with this, I suggest making a five-value scale. Draw five boxes next to each other and make the first one on the left totally black while leaving the last one on the right completely white. Then, fill up the middle one with a value that is just in between black and white. This value is called the “halftone” or “medium gray”. Next, fill in the second box from the left with a value that lies between black and medium gray. This value is called “dark gray”. And the last step is to fill in the second box from the right with a value that lies just in between white and medium gray. This value is called “light gray”.

These five values are enough to start and can already do wonders for your pencil portraits. Practice these five values until you can recognize them instantly when you see them. Now, armed with the knowledge of these five values we can now approach our line drawing which has already mapped out various shapes with different values. We now can start the shading process (i.e., applying of values).

One thing that you should always keep in mind as you shade is the location of the light source or light sources. In the beginning it is best to work with only one light source. Every value you observe should be seen as a function of where the light source is located. Each value you apply should make sense in relation to the light source. Assign each of the areas on your line drawing one of the five values you have internalized. You do that through careful observation. Later, the boundaries between the differently valued areas will be blended together yielding a so-called transition area which has a value in between the two values of the adjacent areas.

To help you further, it is good to think of the different value areas in terms of the five elements of shading:

1. The Halftone – This is the value in the middle of your value scale. It represents the true value of your subject without the effects of direct light or shadow. It is neither light nor dark.

2. Full Light – This is the value of areas where the light hits the subject straight on. It is the white of the paper. This sort of value is also called a highlight.

3. Cast Shadow – This is the darkest value which is the black in the first box on the left of your value scale. This value occurs in places that are completely shielded from the light source or any reflections. These areas are usually to be found among the shadows the subject casts on other surfaces.

4. Shadow Edge – This is the dark gray located in the second box from the left on your value scale. This is for the parts that are not quite in the cast shadow areas but are beyond the halftone. These areas are often between a halftone area and a reflected light area or between a halftone zone and a cast shadow zone.

5. Reflected Light – This is a value corresponding to light gray, the second box from the right on your value scale. Reflected light can often be found as a small band between a cast shadow and a shadow edge. It is the light that bounces back onto your subject from surrounding surfaces. The bottom of the jaw often shows reflected light. Do not make it totally white because it never is. These reflected light areas are important to notice and to render because they contribute significantly to the appearance of roundness and three-dimensionality of your subject.

In conclusion, a satisfactory line drawing together with your knowledge of a five-value scale and the five elements of shading should give you a good start at developing your shading skills. Work with short strokes and blend the adjacent areas into a value that lies in between the two areas. A ball on a table lighted by one light source is a good setup for practicing the five elements of shading. This will help you to understand the real beauty of the paintings done by a famous landscape artist or the portrait artist.

These tips will help you to reach real mastery in portrait drawing.

The Person behind Your art oil paintings
A skilled oil artist who does reproductions or even painting from photos had a formal training about painting techniques and art materials such as oil paint, and has creative painting ideas in order to match the original art. Recreating famous paintings so as to grasp not only the texture and appearance, but also the feeling is their main responsibility.

The anxiety in maintaining oil paintings is normal because it can help you ask the right questions as to how can you take care of your art collections. Paintings may come rolled up and unframed at your doorstep. Eventually, you need to do some stretching over here or you can check your local framing shops to do this challenging work for you. Several art reproductions are protected by varnish; however, you may have an oil painting reproduction that is not varnished and so you may try to risk and do the varnishing yourself.

Factors to Consider in Handling canvas paintings
Framing is an important factor in caring for your reproductions. Glass frames are not used for framed canvas art to minimize fluctuations that might cause expansion or shrinking of the paint layer. Glass frames with acid-free carton are recommended to protect paper-work reproductions.

Direct light and humidity must be considered when hanging your reproduction paintings. Regular inspection should be done to avoid wood-worms and to remove dusts in your frames. You may need a professional help in case you notice prominent cracks, waves or bumps, yellow spots, or paint lifts.

Basic Tasks for a Lasting photo oil painting
Silica Gel can help protect your photo oil paintings against humidity especially during temporary storing. Cotton sheets must effectively cover and protect the stored paintings and should be raised off the floor. Regularly check for dusts, water, and change of cotton sheets. Make sure that nothing should press against the canvas oil painting to avoid disfigure.

Reproduction art does not need to be a luxury. It can be a commodity that you will want to care for it the right way.

In this blog, I will discuss about how artists substituted value change (which was discussed in my earlier blog) with color or intensity change. By animating the inside of the shapes with subtle alternations with hue or intensity rather than value, they created flat, graphic designs. Their color choices were more subjective than descriptive, expressing their reactions to their subject. This approach isn’t about describing the form of your subject, so forget about the direction of your light source, the pattern of light and shadow and all those other conventions for modeling that you’ve learned. Instead, try the following.

1. Start with the simple shape of your subject and fill it with a single color (if you want to be somewhat realistic, use the local color) then quickly create a contrast by adding a complimentary or near-complimentary color. Make sure the two colors are the same or similar in value. Some complimentary combinations are difficult to use; for example, you can’t combine yellow (the lightest pure color) with violet (the darkest) without greatly lightening the violet.
2. Forget about accuracy. The sky doesn’t have to be blue or the grass green. Make your color choices more expressive and emotional than descriptive.
3. all the subjects in your painting don’t have to be close in value, just the inside of each of your shapes. You can have some light shapes (with light color changes inside) and some dark shapes (with dark color changes inside).

With its wide range of moods, colors and textures, water has attracted the attention of artists for centuries. Precisely because of its changeable nature, water is also one of the more challenging painting subjects you can undertake. If you want to capture the beauty of water in your own work, you must understand how to produce the right look for any given situation.

Reflections say a lot about the mood of a body of water. For example, smooth, calm water has a glass-like surface that forms a natural mirror. It’s highly reflective and the reflections it produces are distinctly detailed with relatively straight lines and unbroken shapes. Also, in calm water the length of reflection will be exactly the same as the reflecting objects, measured from where the object, if extended, intersects the water’s surface.

The more active the water’s surface, the more interrupted and distorted the reflections will be. So when painting reflections on rippling water in a stream, lake or river, you don’t need to be precise as when rendering reflections in calm water. On gently moving water, shapes lose their distinct identity. Reflected lines may undulate and appear elongated to the point of exaggeration, or they may be broken up.

When water is in violent motion, as in churning surf, waterfalls and white water rapids, reflections are obliterated. Edges are rough and irregular. When I paint rough water, I try to be mindful of perspective. Waves will appear increasing smaller as you move farther into the distance, and the reflections closer to you will appear bigger than those of the distant waves.

Water in nature isn’t pure and transparent. The more impurities it contains, the more opaque the water, and thus the more body color it has.

There are many techniques in painting the water. The best advice I can give you is observe the water first for a few minutes. And after the moving waves have been frozen in your mind, paint them as to how you see them.

You probably start each painting the way I do, by dividing the pictorial space into varied areas, then reducing your subject into a few simple, interestingly designed silhouettes. That’s a sold first step, but it was what I did next that I found very important: it was finding the way to make the inside of these simple shapes interesting. Fortunately, I found a variety of equally effective and expressive ways to animate my designs. One possibility I considered was varying my values. 

I remembered my teacher in art class discuss this during the final days in school. Value changes – in which shifts between light and dark values are used to create an illusion of three dimensions -  are the most conventional treatment for inside shapes. This produces what most of us would consider the most “realistic” results. For example, Rembrandt’s moving self-portraits and some of Edward Hopper’s works employ value changes to convey their expressive messages. And of course, in the hands of such masters, value change can be an expressive tool. However, this approach often puts a greater emphasis on the description of a subject than on the artist’s emotional response to it. If the form or character of your subject is so appealing, then describing it with value changes is, for me, the best choice.

So I plan the boundaries and proportions of my light and shadow areas so that they create an interesting, varied division of primary shapes.

There are lots of ways in painting common subjects and present them in such a way that they would stand out and have a sense of uniqueness.

Some artists can render vibrant and realistic colors but have difficulty in drawing proportions and perspectives. These two are one of the basic elements in a drawing or sketch. Proportion gives a drawing that normal look especially when drawing the human body. You don’t want that other arm longer and bigger than the other do you? And you don’t want that left eye seem too big for the face. Basically there is a rule on proportion. This is called the Golden Mean. Our upper body’s proportion to our lower body is 1:1.6. An average man is more or less as tall as 7 heads stacked together. There are other theories about the proportion of the human body.

Perspective, on the other hand, gives your drawing a sense of depth and distance. This composes the foreground, midground, and the background. An object, when viewed from afar would look smaller than its actual size. Perspective can be achieved in different ways. One of which is by making the farther object smaller and shorter than the nearer one. Another way is by overlapping the object that is nearer over the farther one. The third way of achieving perspective is by blurring the farther object. The farther it goes, the lesser detail there will be.

Perspective can also affect proportion. For example, a man’s arm, when extended forward or backward would appear shorter than its actual length. The hand that is extended forward would appear bigger and the far one, smaller. This is called foreshortening.

I will soon post some of my artworks that show these two elements.