Posts Tagged "figure drawing"

Painting the Pinoy Rock ‘n’ Roll Daughters

Ever since I started to actively post my illustration work on social media, I’ve been getting inquiries about portraiture which is flattering because I eventually want to get into that. The thing is I’d like to #practicepamore. 😉

Who to populate my portfolio with, though? My drawing style seems suited to teen-aged girls so I knew my subjects had to fall within that demographic. Turns out I didn’t have to look too far. I knew four friends (collectively known as the Eraserheads) who have daughters — pretty ones at that. It was only fitting that I get the girls as my portrait models — I owe my career-outside-advertising to their dads, I hung out with the moms when they were still in their bellies, and I pretty much saw them grow up. One of them, Veda, was even our flower girl! The portraits were also going to be my gifts to the families. <3

Thankfully the parents were cool with it so I coordinated with the moms and the older girls on which outfits their favorites were because I wanted their portraits to reflect their personas as closely as possible. Below on the left are my preliminary pencil sketches. After showing them to each family, I fine-tuned the drawings and transferred them on to 270 gsm cold press watercolor paper.

eraserheads daughters custom portraits

Initially I wanted to use colored pencils but it was Arnold who convinced me to use water color instead. I hesitated since I haven’t painted people realistic-style in years and that would be way out of my comfort zone. He suggested that I practice on smaller drawings first so I made these mini versions below to play with until I got my groove back. (I highly recommend this especially if you’re shifting from one medium to another.)

watercolor practice

It felt almost like playing once I got the hang of it… Okay now I think I want to do everything in watercolor. 😛

And finally here are the finished portraits. (For a closer look at the individual illustrations, please head on over to the portfolio entry.) 🙂

eraserheads daughters by cynthia bauzon arre

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Figure Drawing Practice

colored pencil illustrations

Figure drawing has always been my crutch so I’ve been re-learning the basics lately. Well I had a lot of practice drawing people back in art school – in fact we had an entire semester devoted to it but after years of relying on digital tools, sadly my skills deteriorated over time (see proof in my art style evolution blog post). Among my resolutions for the year was to hone whatever skills I developed in my early years and pick up where I left off.

I don’t post them online but each night for the past month I would draw human forms in different positions and let Arnold (who obviously is a whiz at figure drawing) check them for flaws. Below are some initial practice sketches from a month ago (waaah, don’t laugh 😳 ).

figure drawing practice

Now you know why I’ve always been drawing cartoon style, I was pretty bad at realistic figure drawing. Arn is a very strict teacher actually, he would give me drills and make me re-draw over and over until I would get details right. (He *should* hold workshops, don’t you think?)

It really helped me find the right path again and soon, I was able to draw those colored pencil illustrations posted above and this one below.

Kinda leaning (hah! ????) towards figure drawing these days. ?? #illustration #coloredpencils #artph

A photo posted by Cynthia Bauzon-Arre (@arncyn) on

More soon, guys. I’m also busy working on an interesting personal project which you’ll see work-in-progress pics of in my Instagram.

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I'm Cynthia Bauzon-Arre, a Filipino watercolor artist & graphic designer. I live in QC with my graphic novelist husband Arnold and our friendly marmalade tabby Abbas. This blog has been chronicling my life, likes, and loves since 2001. [ more ]

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