Are you struggling with your drawing technique but you don’t understand why or how to fix your problems? Are you a perfectionist who never finishes a drawing? Are you pouring hours into a drawing but then it just looks horrible and you don’t know why?

Well, this section of the website is for you! Just post a drawing in the comment section below and you’ll receive my honest, professional, zero-nonsense feedback.

I’ll highlight what I think are the positives and as well point out any problems and mistakes (if any!).

I wish I had something like this when I was learning!

So don’t make me wait! Start posting your stuff and put it to the test!

Share your images below:

Simply upload your drawing into the comment field (look for the little camera icon in the Disqus comments section) and they’ll get embedded for me to see or if you’d prefer, upload them to your favorite photo-sharing site and leave the link to them.

29 COMMENTS

    • Hi Vince
      The anatomy section of the 10 day drawing challenge was er very challenging ha.
      Thanks for your feedback on the sketching photo I sent you recently.

      So finally I’ve got to colouring in the drawing after your advice. Unfortunately, I’ve used cheap Chinese made colouring pencils and they are as hard as hell. So couldn’t really get the depth of colour I wanted.

      Any feedback would be appreciated.

      Thank you

      John

      • Hey John,

        here is my feedback as promised.

        Positives: I think you have done a very good job reproducing the original image. Overall composition and fidelity to the source image is really good. I like, it well done 🙂

        Drawbacks: What keeps this image from really shining is the following in my opinion: lack of depth. Tonally the image is flat or to say it differently, there is no much difference between the darks and the light values therefore the image fails at conveying that three-dimensional and volumetric feeling.

        How to fix it? Deepen the darker areas using a darker red pencil.

        Also you drew the muscles using a very dark pencil mark which is still visible after you colored.

        How to fix it: next time either use a lighter pencil so that the line is not visible after coloring OR use a dark red pencil instead of a normal graphite pencil to draw the muscles when you are in the sketching phase.

        Hope it’s helpful!

  3. Hi Vince,

    Here is a picture of one of my 5 children I drew. I think I am close but I also think something is missing.
    Paulette

    • Hi Paulette,

      Here is my feedback:
      Your portrait looks great Paulette, you certainly are not a novice for sure and YES you indeed are close 🙂 However with portraiture the Devil IS in the details.

      Human brains are very good at recognizing faces which means we are very good at telling if something is off between two faces that are supposed to belong to the same person. Therein lies the first problem with this drawing, your portrait is not accurate enough to capture that likeness you are aiming for and it really applies to the whole image.

      Some details that stand out to me: The nose, you have interpreted the bottom section of the nose that it’s in shadow in the picture as if instead the nose extended down all the way. Also the nostrils are larger AND closer to the eyes.

      The chin is also less prominent in the photograph compared to your drawing. But these are just two examples. It feels like at this stage you need still to be more precise overall when reproducing the photograph and take your time to make sure you have measured and referenced all the facial features with accuracy. (With time it’ll become natural and more spontaneous).

      The second problem is with value in this drawing. Shadows are absent although I imagine you stopped there because you weren’t happy with the result so far? As a consequence the drawing looks flat.

      Use a finer grid (or a Smart grid which I explain here on the website) to reproduce facial features more accurately and you’ll be on your way to create great portraits!

      • Vince,

        Thanks for exploring the issues is in this drawing. I see what you have pointed out about the facial features. I would like to draw where the picture is not flat. I will explore the Smart grid approach.

        Thanks for the detail reply,
        Paulette

  4. Hi Vince,
    So I just turned 13 a couple of weeks ago and I have been enjoying art so much recently. This is a portrait I drew, I would love some feedback because I want to improve my drawings 🙂
    Also please ignore the lined paper it was all I had xD
    Thank you!
    Erin

    • Hello Erin and thank you for submitting your lovely piece!

      Let’s start with the positives shall we?
      You show a really nice feel for composition, I like how the face is not centered but on the side of the frame. Also your rendering is nice with a very pleasing contrast (nice intense blacks and bold strokes). Also very good job in rendering the hair and eyes. Overall is a very lovely sketch. I don’t mind the lines underneath 🙂

      Now onto the constructive criticism.
      When it comes to drawing faces details and arrangement of facial features are important.

      For example the mouth is slightly misaligned to the nose midline. It is pretty important to align the midline of nose and mouth as they are almost never out of alignment in real people.
      Now, pupils. Normally pupils move together and in your drawing it looks like the right pupil is more on the right than the left pupil so it’s not clear where she is looking.
      Nostrils. Again, while your character has a lovely nose, nostrils are slightly out of alignment, the right nostril is higher than the left one.
      My final observation concerns symmetry again, the eyebrows look different from one another as if the right one had less hair than the left one! Eyebrow density is normally the same.

      That’s it Erin, I think you have a very good hand, keep working on it and you’ll get very good in no time 😉 Oh, I’d love to see your next one 😉

      cheers

  6. Hey Vince, cool name kinda like da Vinci,
    So this was just a simple drawing of a (cartoon) girl that I came up with, so there’s no reference, but please forgive the little mistakes that I made cause I did it on autodesk Sketchbook for mobiles on my Tab.
    Also can you recommend any drawing stylus for a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3? Thanks!

    • Hello Xpdition and thank you for submitting your drawing! As promised here is my honest and zero-nonsense opinion, are you ready?

      As you say in your description this is a drawing of a cartoon girl face so it’s a little bit more difficult to evaluate it because it depends on what you had in mind while drawing it. Now, kudos to you for drawing this without reference, which is not easy, you did a good job there.

      However, for the sake of discussion, let’s assume it was just a quick sketch where you wanted to quickly put together a female face, shall we? (Correct me if I am wrong though).

      The first two things that I see here are:

      1.the expression of this character, a staring gaze and a slightly sad face as if she was surprised and kind of disappointed at the same time (80% surprised and 20% disappointed). If you were going for this then, well you got it but, if you wanted to draw a more neutral expression instead there are a few things you would need to rework. For example eyes are too wide open, giving her that stare and the angles of the eyebrows and mouth need to be raised a bit otherwise she’ll look sad.

      2. The second thing I noticed is the overall lack of contrast in the drawing. Everything is kind of gray. It would have been nice for example if the hair had been darker as well as the eyes and mouth to draw attention to those details.

      I see you did a careful job with the eyes and hair, cool, however you did not put as much attention to the nose and mouth (maybe because you find them more difficult to draw?). This gives to the drawing an uneven sense of focus. Some things are in focus and detailed and some aren’t.

      Overall I can see how you love drawing which is awesome! Keep doing it, put in place some of my suggestions and you’ll start drawing better portraits in no time!

  7. Hello Vince, First, let me thank you for providing your expertise & generosity in teaching others to draw.I just found your site today & I love it! Today I started with your tutorial on drawing a face. I drew the oval & placed all the markers but I can’t get his features right. I’m having trouble making this guy look like a guy. I’ve worked & re-worked the eyes & mouth but he still looks too feminine to me. Please help!
    Thank You!
    Lindy

  8. hi there!my friend ask me to draw the two of them beacuse they think I have the skill but then Am not that good and so i was kinda wondering if i can have a professional advice from you guys I’ll appreciate it.tnx! God bless!

  9. This is a memorial for my grandma that passed away from breast cancer. It’s not meant to be life like or still like. Just a design. I have this tattooed on my ribs and it’s realistic.

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