Father and Child

On my second day of learning to sketch from photos I decided to do a companion piece from yesterday’s sketch, Mother and Child. I had a photo of the father cradling his sleeping baby while stretched out on the couch with his feet on the coffee table. I thought it conveyed how loved this child is and how much babies want to be held by their parents.

A challenge in using photos is the proportions can be odd due to the angle the camera is held at. In the photo I used today the father’s legs were way too short. I measured and matched the proportions in the photo to my sketch but thought it looked wrong. It took me several tries to even understand the source of the problem and then a few more to make the changes.

A second challenge today can be a challenge when doing live sketching as well. Sometimes the scene needs to be redesigned so the composition has more flow or rhythm.  In today’s sketch I wanted a diagonal flow from upper left to lower right so the original round coffee table became a rectangle and the L-shaped sofa lost its side seats.

This is a pastel, gouache and Procreate sketch.