One Week Portrait, 2020

September 23, 2020

This year I decided to participate in both of Paintable’s One Week Portrait challenges. The purpose of the challenge is to create your best portrait yet. Instructor David breaks up the challenge across 5 days, which allows you to create your very best work while putting in as little or as much time as you want.

While I’m pretty well versed in digital drawing, seeing the videos was a great refresher and anyone who draws can always do with a bit of practice studying. Back in April, I created the first one, seen on the left, of model Hamid Fadaei. I chose the reference photo for its particular contrast, fun lighting, colors, textures, and of course… The smoke.

The second reference image I chose, by photographer Anna Danilova, was pretty much the opposite of the first. It was using really subtle colors and shades, most of it was obscured, and because there’s only a relatively low quality resolution copy of this image on the web (and I cropped it in on the face), I had to make up some textures and other pixel data.

Overall fun to do, a nice practice exercise, and something to keep my mind occupied while the world is currently exploding. Hoping to have some new illustrations soon. Thanks for reading. 🙂

Aimee Cozza is a freelance illustrator out of Southern New Hampshire. She graduated from the New Hampshire Institute of Art in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in illustration. Since then, she has been working in a variety of ways completing various illustrations for clients, friends, and for herself.

Love art?

Sign up for new illustrative artworks, Photoshop and digital art tips, tricks, timelapse videos, art product reviews, and more shenanigans delivered straight to your inbox! You'll receive one email a month. I'll never share or sell your information with anyone and you can unsubscribe at any time.
I am interested in emails about: