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Can you go into more detail about this? As in how do you know? I'm an amateur artist myself and was amazed he could get these portraits done so quickly. But I w

Can you go into more detail about this? As in how do you know? I'm an amateur artist myself and was amazed he could get these portraits done so quickly. But I wouldn't rule out that he just learned to do it quickly personally.

boppo1 3y ago
I can, but it's not straightforward so I'll have to do so this evening or tomorrow morning when I have a keyboard. Check back for a separate comment. Edit: An example of a person who could have actually done this 'for real' was Kim Jung Gi. Until I get back, go take a look at his work, the line-only pen drawings in particular (or one-color brush pen stuff) and compare it to how Rodriguez's stuff looks. KJG has a 'decisiveness' of line[0] that comes from clarity of 'drawing thought'. Rodriguez has mark-making[0] that is consistent with a novice painstakingly copying a photo. [0] 'mark making' is an umbrella term for the quality of the marks that make up a drawing/painting, separate from whatever they depict.
boppo1 3y ago
[edit] some links seem broken, will maybe fix later. Hopefully the overall gist is clear.[/edit] Sorry for the delay, turned out busier than I expected! Apologies if this is a bit meandering. The main point I'm making here is that Rodriguez claims to 'draw from life' i.e. directly observing his subjects, and I believe he actually works from photographs. The dead giveaway is that there's a certain look that "talented-amateur" drawings from photographs have that drawings from life do not. This 'look' can be overcome[0] by people with lots of life-drawing experience, but I digress. The thing about photographs is that the image mapping from 3d space to 2d space, as well as the recording of light/dark relationships has all been done already by the camera. When you draw from life, you have to make lots of decisions and carefully organize all of the visual information yourself. When you copy a photograph, you only worry about how dark each x-y position is. There's a bit more to it, but the short of it is that there's a distinct 'look' that you can easily recognize if you have a lot of experience drawing from life (or you've looked at a lot of old paintings made prior to cameras[1]). To help you better see this 'look', google "hyperrealism drawings". It's a bunch of artists all drawing the same thing: high contrast, high detail (often somewhat wonky) photograph copies. There's very little of the individual artists' 'identities' coming through because they're not making any decisions, they're just copying the information recorded by the camera. The wonkiness happens because the way the camera recorded the organization of lights & darks is different than what a human would actually percieve. Another giveaway is the lighting on Devon's drawings. People who are drawing from life basically never have a light source pointed at the subject directly from their point of observation. However, in lots of drawings from photographs, that's exactly the way the subject is lit because the main light source was the flash from the camera. If you scroll down his page a bit, there's a woman with red hair holding a painting of herself. Throughtout the entire video as he is "painting", you can see that they are lit from her left. However, in the final painting that you can see in the thumbnail, the strongest light is from her right, with a fill light on the other side. It's obviously some sort of studio lighting. The painting clearly does not match the light of the scene he is allegedly painting from. It does seem like he's actually making the painting on location, but the space between them seems concealed. I would wager there's a photo there that he's copying (I admit I did not watch the whole video to confirm). Detail #??? is that the overall look of the drawings gives away that they were made with pencil hatching from a photo, because they look just like the drawings that I made, hatching with a pencil, from photos. Here someone could argue "No, what if Rodriguez really is that incredible? What if he can actually just draw those drawings on a bumpy subway ride, from a moving subject, in 30-40 minutes[2]?" If that were the case, and he had that level of talent, I'd ask why his drawings otherwise look so... bad. Check out this portrait of Matt Damon (pause right at the beginning): https://www.instagram.com/p/Cxgh-yYvlEL/ https://www.instagram.com/p/Cxgh-yYvlEL/. It's a horrible likeness. Without knowing the context that it was a drawing of Matt Damon, would you be confident of the subject's identity? If Rodriguez really was so incredible, why do his drawings look like every other amateur graphite photo copy and not more attractive drawings-from-photos like these: https://www.instagram.com/p/CzHBzZ5Oc0v/?img_index=1 https://www.instagram.com/p/CzHBzZ5Oc0v/?img_index=1 https://www.instagram.com/p/CRJhfVpAXuj/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CRJhfVpAXuj/ Just for good measure, let me also give some examples of people who make drawings/paintings from life: https://www.instagram.com/noelle_gunsay.art/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/noelle_gunsay.art/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/kidpaints/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/kidpaints/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/p/CYCOI13LEOG/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/p/CYCOI13LEOG/?hl=en Maybe you can see some of the difference concerning that difference in 'look' between life drawing and photo-copying[3]. There's more solidity, facial features seem more 'locked in' to the head, there's a more careful arrangement of the brightest lights and darkest darks to focus your attention. Whereas in Rodriguez's drawings the lights and darks are all over the place (as they also are in the 'hyperrealist' drawings). Admittedly, the first two are students at GCA where most of the paintings are notably very long poses, 20+ hours. However, the last link is to a Sargent, and iirc his charcoal portraits were 2-4 hour affairs. Sargent was among the ~100 most talented (debatable, but again I digress) to have ever lived and he certainly outclasses Rodriguez. If he takes 4 hours to draw a portrait with charcoal, which is a dramatically faster medium than graphite pencil because you can use it like paint, there's no way Rodriguez is rendering full figures in graphite pencil in ~30-40 minutes (unless he's copying a photograph which isn't moving). [0] This is an example: https://www.instagram.com/p/CPn2Rpls5DP/?hl=en&img_index=1 https://www.instagram.com/p/CPn2Rpls5DP/?hl=en&img_index=1. I watched one of his workshops and he explicitly said "I work from photos now, but I lean on my 10k hours of drawing from life". [1] Someone will certainly read this and cite 'Tim's Vermeer' at me. I strongly disagree with the claims of the film that lenses were 'central' to artists' workflows. A. I have a camera lucida that collects dust because it only gets in the way. B. People like Alex Ramon Hurtado have done extensive research into how past artists painted and lenses were not much more than a novelty. C. David Hockney can barely paint, so when he says something is "impossible without the help of a camera lens" I would assert that he hasn't got a clue what is and isn't possible. [2] I'm guessing an average NYC subway commute time here. But it raises another great point! Devon's videos show that he's 'surprising' these people with drawings, so clearly he hasn't asked them "how long are you going to be riding for?" What happens if the person just gets up after 10 minutes and he's only 20% through the drawing? Does he just get lucky every time? [3] The drawings by Sajad Khaleghi IMO are another exception to the rule, that guy's work is really strong. Wish I could speak/read arabic (or whatever language that is). There are a couple places he slips though, like this one: https://www.instagram.com/p/CzHBzZ5Oc0v/?img_index=4 https://www.instagram.com/p/CzHBzZ5Oc0v/?img_index=4. If you look at how the eyes are set into the skull and the overall shape of the head, there's some clear distortion from the camera. [BONUS] There's a video where he is allegedly setup to paint Jared Leto directly from life. I don't think I've ever seen a video with less sincerity: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cwg7r4ws9px/ https://www.instagram.com/p/Cwg7r4ws9px/. Models don't ever sit for 5 straight hours, they take breaks every 40 minutes (at a maximum). A '5 hour pose' usually happens over the course of 8 hours. An experienced model might go longer, but I have sincere doubts Mr. Leto would be happy to give up an entire day for a portrait of the quality that Rodriguez gives him at the end. (compare the quality of that painting to even the 'sketchier' portraits from the GCA students). ANYWAY, like I said this is a little scattered. There are a lot more clues and indications all over, but I kinda gotta go do stuff instead of writing a thesis on HN. Overall I actually agree a lot with the Artnet critic. Rodriguez should be commended for his success and expertise. However, that expertise is in social media and brand management, not drawing and painting.
- silent_cal 3y ago
  Gotcha, thanks so much for this, very enlightening.. I have noticed that certain drawings have that "look" but I hadn't put my finger on the reason why like you have here. I'm assuming you're an artist yourself?
  - boppo1 3y ago
    I am! Lmk if you have other questions.

boppo1 3y ago

I can, but it's not straightforward so I'll have to do so this evening or tomorrow morning when I have a keyboard. Check back for a separate comment. Edit: An example of a person who could have actually done this 'for real' was Kim Jung Gi. Until I get back, go take a look at his work, the line-only pen drawings in particular (or one-color brush pen stuff) and compare it to how Rodriguez's stuff looks. KJG has a 'decisiveness' of line[0] that comes from clarity of 'drawing thought'. Rodriguez has mark-making[0] that is consistent with a novice painstakingly copying a photo. [0] 'mark making' is an umbrella term for the quality of the marks that make up a drawing/painting, separate from whatever they depict.

boppo1 3y ago

[edit] some links seem broken, will maybe fix later. Hopefully the overall gist is clear.[/edit] Sorry for the delay, turned out busier than I expected! Apologies if this is a bit meandering. The main point I'm making here is that Rodriguez claims to 'draw from life' i.e. directly observing his subjects, and I believe he actually works from photographs. The dead giveaway is that there's a certain look that "talented-amateur" drawings from photographs have that drawings from life do not. This 'look' can be overcome[0] by people with lots of life-drawing experience, but I digress. The thing about photographs is that the image mapping from 3d space to 2d space, as well as the recording of light/dark relationships has all been done already by the camera. When you draw from life, you have to make lots of decisions and carefully organize all of the visual information yourself. When you copy a photograph, you only worry about how dark each x-y position is. There's a bit more to it, but the short of it is that there's a distinct 'look' that you can easily recognize if you have a lot of experience drawing from life (or you've looked at a lot of old paintings made prior to cameras[1]). To help you better see this 'look', google "hyperrealism drawings". It's a bunch of artists all drawing the same thing: high contrast, high detail (often somewhat wonky) photograph copies. There's very little of the individual artists' 'identities' coming through because they're not making any decisions, they're just copying the information recorded by the camera. The wonkiness happens because the way the camera recorded the organization of lights & darks is different than what a human would actually percieve. Another giveaway is the lighting on Devon's drawings. People who are drawing from life basically never have a light source pointed at the subject directly from their point of observation. However, in lots of drawings from photographs, that's exactly the way the subject is lit because the main light source was the flash from the camera. If you scroll down his page a bit, there's a woman with red hair holding a painting of herself. Throughtout the entire video as he is "painting", you can see that they are lit from her left. However, in the final painting that you can see in the thumbnail, the strongest light is from her right, with a fill light on the other side. It's obviously some sort of studio lighting. The painting clearly does not match the light of the scene he is allegedly painting from. It does seem like he's actually making the painting on location, but the space between them seems concealed. I would wager there's a photo there that he's copying (I admit I did not watch the whole video to confirm). Detail #??? is that the overall look of the drawings gives away that they were made with pencil hatching from a photo, because they look just like the drawings that I made, hatching with a pencil, from photos. Here someone could argue "No, what if Rodriguez really is that incredible? What if he can actually just draw those drawings on a bumpy subway ride, from a moving subject, in 30-40 minutes[2]?" If that were the case, and he had that level of talent, I'd ask why his drawings otherwise look so... bad. Check out this portrait of Matt Damon (pause right at the beginning): https://www.instagram.com/p/Cxgh-yYvlEL/ https://www.instagram.com/p/Cxgh-yYvlEL/. It's a horrible likeness. Without knowing the context that it was a drawing of Matt Damon, would you be confident of the subject's identity? If Rodriguez really was so incredible, why do his drawings look like every other amateur graphite photo copy and not more attractive drawings-from-photos like these: https://www.instagram.com/p/CzHBzZ5Oc0v/?img_index=1 https://www.instagram.com/p/CzHBzZ5Oc0v/?img_index=1 https://www.instagram.com/p/CRJhfVpAXuj/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CRJhfVpAXuj/ Just for good measure, let me also give some examples of people who make drawings/paintings from life: https://www.instagram.com/noelle_gunsay.art/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/noelle_gunsay.art/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/kidpaints/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/kidpaints/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/p/CYCOI13LEOG/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/p/CYCOI13LEOG/?hl=en Maybe you can see some of the difference concerning that difference in 'look' between life drawing and photo-copying[3]. There's more solidity, facial features seem more 'locked in' to the head, there's a more careful arrangement of the brightest lights and darkest darks to focus your attention. Whereas in Rodriguez's drawings the lights and darks are all over the place (as they also are in the 'hyperrealist' drawings). Admittedly, the first two are students at GCA where most of the paintings are notably very long poses, 20+ hours. However, the last link is to a Sargent, and iirc his charcoal portraits were 2-4 hour affairs. Sargent was among the ~100 most talented (debatable, but again I digress) to have ever lived and he certainly outclasses Rodriguez. If he takes 4 hours to draw a portrait with charcoal, which is a dramatically faster medium than graphite pencil because you can use it like paint, there's no way Rodriguez is rendering full figures in graphite pencil in ~30-40 minutes (unless he's copying a photograph which isn't moving). [0] This is an example: https://www.instagram.com/p/CPn2Rpls5DP/?hl=en&img_index=1 https://www.instagram.com/p/CPn2Rpls5DP/?hl=en&img_index=1. I watched one of his workshops and he explicitly said "I work from photos now, but I lean on my 10k hours of drawing from life". [1] Someone will certainly read this and cite 'Tim's Vermeer' at me. I strongly disagree with the claims of the film that lenses were 'central' to artists' workflows. A. I have a camera lucida that collects dust because it only gets in the way. B. People like Alex Ramon Hurtado have done extensive research into how past artists painted and lenses were not much more than a novelty. C. David Hockney can barely paint, so when he says something is "impossible without the help of a camera lens" I would assert that he hasn't got a clue what is and isn't possible. [2] I'm guessing an average NYC subway commute time here. But it raises another great point! Devon's videos show that he's 'surprising' these people with drawings, so clearly he hasn't asked them "how long are you going to be riding for?" What happens if the person just gets up after 10 minutes and he's only 20% through the drawing? Does he just get lucky every time? [3] The drawings by Sajad Khaleghi IMO are another exception to the rule, that guy's work is really strong. Wish I could speak/read arabic (or whatever language that is). There are a couple places he slips though, like this one: https://www.instagram.com/p/CzHBzZ5Oc0v/?img_index=4 https://www.instagram.com/p/CzHBzZ5Oc0v/?img_index=4. If you look at how the eyes are set into the skull and the overall shape of the head, there's some clear distortion from the camera. [BONUS] There's a video where he is allegedly setup to paint Jared Leto directly from life. I don't think I've ever seen a video with less sincerity: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cwg7r4ws9px/ https://www.instagram.com/p/Cwg7r4ws9px/. Models don't ever sit for 5 straight hours, they take breaks every 40 minutes (at a maximum). A '5 hour pose' usually happens over the course of 8 hours. An experienced model might go longer, but I have sincere doubts Mr. Leto would be happy to give up an entire day for a portrait of the quality that Rodriguez gives him at the end. (compare the quality of that painting to even the 'sketchier' portraits from the GCA students). ANYWAY, like I said this is a little scattered. There are a lot more clues and indications all over, but I kinda gotta go do stuff instead of writing a thesis on HN. Overall I actually agree a lot with the Artnet critic. Rodriguez should be commended for his success and expertise. However, that expertise is in social media and brand management, not drawing and painting.

silent_cal 3y ago
Gotcha, thanks so much for this, very enlightening.. I have noticed that certain drawings have that "look" but I hadn't put my finger on the reason why like you have here. I'm assuming you're an artist yourself?
- boppo1 3y ago
  I am! Lmk if you have other questions.