Smudges

My art teacher says art is just a matter of making smudges in the right places. She doesn't like lines. We are never supposed to draw a "nose" for instance. We make smudges in the right shapes and the nose will suddenly appear. I try to do that, but it's a hard thing to NOT trust your instincts and draw a nose. But if you do try to concentrate and draw a nose, you'll get a stylized feature that just won't look right. So the midway process in any drawing looks pretty yucky.
In addition, the same thing applies to colors. You don't "paint" skin with flesh. You apply smudges of color, like blue and red and brown and yellow to make it look like it has depth. So once again, everything looks like a goey mess of weird colors that will never make skin.
Thought I'd share that process on my very first attempt at drawing a portrait with pastels. I sketched it in with light brown and then did the blue around the face (just so I could see the outline) and the black hair.
Since I don't know what I am really doing, I tried to see the colors in the skin and started adding in grey and blue and red and brown and even orange in various shades. I got all these weird combinations going, just to see what would work. In addition I had to pay attention to the smudges to make the various facial features. You can see why I would lose track of time doing this. It's an intricate procedure.
After about two hours of work, I knew I needed to stop. If I work too much longer than that, my shoulders ache and my hands hurt, so I try to give it a break and do something entirely different.
Take a look at the process. You can see the progress. I deliberately did not blend the orange in, as I plan to apply some red over it to tone it down. In pastels you always work dark to light, so try not to panic over the fact that it is all dark and ghoulish looking. By the way, isn't it creepy to see no eye?
Two hours of work and I am still blocking in shapes. I have not done the nose at all. If there appears to be a nose, it's because you know there is supposed to be a nose in the middle of the face. Because of smearing I tend to do the left side first and then move to the right side. Also I work on the top and then down to the bottom. I am having fun experimenting and seeing what happens. I don't really think you should experiment on a real drawing, but I find that a lot more interesting than doing squares of colors!
João hates this photo of himself, but I told him that I chose this photo because we are not fond of it and I knew I'd make a lot of mistakes and this way I wouldn't have a high emotional investment. For instance, I loved Bia's photo and I was a nervous wreck about ruining her watercolor. I know this will be no portrait to hang on a wall, but I want to learn in the process.
Wouldn't life be a lot more fun if we didn't get in a hurry to see flesh color immediately, or try to draw noses instead of smudges? Okay, that's not exactly what I wanted to say, but you get the drift. As we obey God, even when we can't see the "whole picture" or the final "portrait", we are becoming who He wants us to be. Cool, eh?