One of the online resources I recommend to anyone trying to get better at portraits is the subreddit r/redditgetsdrawn. I’ve drawn 400+ portraits from there in the last 4 years. Everytime I log in, I find new, fresh portraits that challenge in several interesting ways. It could be about the facial expression, clothing, pose, ensemble, or setting. You never know what you will see because the posters are also incentivized to get creative. More creative pictures get more upvotes.

This is how it works - redditors post interesting photos of themselves or others for artists to draw. The artists who log onto the subreddit are evidently looking for inspiring and interesting photos. They also represent different artistic styles and media. So the drawings posted under any picture post are numerous and diverse as well. This makes it very interesting to not just draw, or submit photos, but also to just browse and see the different styles displayed. I’ve learned so much even from just watching.

In fact, RGD was where I made my first sales as an artist. I drew portraits according to various rules I set for myself - I would draw quickly, and complete 4-5 submissions in one sitting within an hour. I was aiming for building up my instincts and counting on speed combined with regular practice to help hone those instincts. I may not be best qualified to say this unequivocally, but I think it worked for me very well.

(above, some early drawings from 2018, with a focus on facial features but also watercolor)

I was thinking about RGD this week when I gave a beginner’s workshop on urban-sketching to a group of participants over Zoom. Check out more details of the workshop and consider signing up if interested. I did a few demos from pics I downloaded from RGD, and am encouraging them to visit the site and do their own practice.

A few days after the session, I was looking for something to draw for practice, and it came back to me how much I enjoyed revisiting r/RGD, so I did that again. It was a lot of fun! Below are the portraits I made over a 60 minute session.

I am no longer primarily concerned with sharing the portraits on Reddit. It is more fun for me to control for various factors and challenge myself with interesting portraits. Speed is one constraint always. Another one is that I cannot erase, because I draw with the pen straightaway. With every portrait, I try one or the thing new, just so I don’t draw them out of some rote process. For some of them, I went in the reverse order, starting from lower in the body and drawing upwards. In some, I drew the face details last, focusing on the silhouette instead. Whenever two people were standing close to each other, I would try to disambiguate from their individual figures and draw them as some kind of new organism with strange shapes and curves.

It’s a useful way to look at things, especially aspects of the figure that are otherwise challenging for you. You’ll find you are better able to overcome certain obstacles if you just look at them in a different way than you typically do. It’s something I also addressed in my workshop. Overcoming drawing/art obstacles is a lot like climbing a mountain. Sometimes you reach a point with a sheer vertical face in front of you. What do you do? You could try to climb up that way, and it would be infinitely harder than you were used to. But why should you go up the same way? Simply because you came up this way? Is it not smarter to go around the mountain and find maybe a more agreeable slope on another side? You shouldn’t challenge yourself with something simply because it is the more difficult challenge. It is wiser to think of the larger task (climbing the mountain, completing the portrait) and take whatever shortcuts you can wherever possible.

So, plan your route. If you cannot do hands very well, combine it with the rest of the arm, see it as a shape instead of the hand with the fingers that you fear so much. Draw it in the other direction, go counter-clockwise where you normally go clockwise, go up instead of down, make one line instead of 5 shorter lines. Strategize!

If you’re looking for a resource for quirky, interesting portraits, and a selection that updates every day in unexpected ways, try r/redditgetsdrawn. And do submit your drawings and participate in the full Reddit experience. You hear great things from the OP and also other artists.

My Journey with RedditGetsDrawn