Portrait Commissions

I got my artistic gene from my dad. He's been a very skilled artist since he was a teenager, possibly earlier, and has managed to maintain his foot in the door of artistic careers ever since then. Currently and for years, he has been a freelance creative director for television, which is to say, he comes up with new logo and promotion ideas and illustrates them via Photoshop. In his down time, he has been working on his life's work, coming up with a system for how we can change the world for the better and into a new and more prosperous world for everyone.
"The ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do." -Steve Jobs
Getting back on track though, yes, my dad managed to teach me a couple of things about drawing in particular. When I was watching him paint the figure of a woman and blotting in the shadows with his paintbrush, he would tell me not to look at this hand as a hand, but look at it as shapes of shadow and shapes of light. If you see the shape of an eagle in the reference you're using, you'll know your painting isn't right if you don't see the eagle there, as well.

I was fourteen when I had my first attempt at drawing in realism using a portrait of my brother. Thinking of this advice my dad gave me, I put it into action and found that drawing portraits really isn't as scary as I had thought it was. The only real issue I had with it, for many years to come, was keeping everything in proportion. Sure, my drawings looked fine, but it rarely actually looked like the portrait I was referencing. I tried the tricks where you measure the reference with your pencil and attempt to replicate it in your drawing, but it didn't work all the time, because that was only really guestimating, as well.




In 2013, I had invested in a light box. This was literally the best decision I had ever made with regard to drawing portraits. In addition to the light box, I purchased a transparent sheet with a grid printed on it. Adding a grid to the reference portrait in Photoshop allows me to keep my drawing in proportion with the grids as my main tool. This realization probably would have proved useful much earlier if I had bothered to take any art classes while I was in college. Regardless, this newfound confidence in my ability to better replicate a person's likeness has been very liberating, and I'm sure I'll use this technique to start drawing more famous people.

Pricing

I am open for commissions. Digital copies base price is $100 per face up to 3 hours, then an additional $50/hour if it takes longer. I am very honest about how much time it takes, so I will not cheat you, pinky swear. Original paper copies base price is $200 per face up to 3 hours, then the additional $50/hour furthermore. The paper copies are more expensive because there's a lot of tedious work I would otherwise have to do to complete the portrait that I normally do digitally.

My portraits generally take 1-3 hours to draw, depending on the detail or difficulty. The portrait of Bingbing Li here took 6 hours to complete, the longest I have ever spent on a portrait thus far. I do not draw animals, only humans. The better quality photo you provide, the better quality drawing you will receive. Photographs with good contrast, bright lighting, clear focus, and high resolution usually work best. Please email me at ajjenshus@hotmail.com if you're interested.

In Queue: 0
Completed: 2

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