Pilgrim Girl with Vegetables

The past couple of days I’ve had some time to do a little Inkscape drawing. I find it difficult to draw people that look natural so that is what I’ve been working on. Our brains are wired to pick up minute details in the faces of people, so we can tell right away when a drawing doesn’t look quite right. My people tend to look stiff and usually have a “deer in the headlights” look. Not good!

You can see looking at the Pilgrim Girl to the left, how stiff she looks.  She also has a “dazed look” to her eyes.

I’ve joined a couple Inkscape groups on Facebook and one in particular seems to be very helpful. The Inkscape- Draw Freely group has some very talented people who are willing to give suggestions and have given me some ideas to try.

Girl in the Wind

After doing a little research and trying some suggestions, I did another drawing, making sure to use more curved lines and making some subtle changes to the eyes. I like the result much better, although I realize I still need more work on expressing emotion/ facial expression.

Also, take a look at the girl’s shirt and face and you will see that I used Inkscape’s Paint Bucket tool to add dimension. By filling in the same area multiple times with slightly different shades, I was able to achieve some depth.  Each time I added a layer with the Paint Bucket, I increased the amount of shrink. I like the way it worked and I think it gives it a bit of a water color effect.

Happy drawing.

Laurianne