Big eyes (two paintings) updated art post / Velike oči (dvije slike)

Hello dear readers! Originally I shared two watercolour portraits in this post titled big eyes. Both of these portraits show ladies with big eyes (as the title would imply). There's no reference to the film of the same movie, that wasn't even filmed when this post was first posted. Now, when I look at these watercolours, I can see the paint application isn't any good. 

The watercolours were quite murky because they were painted on cardboard and in a hurry. 

Let's be frank. These portraits are just sketches and not very good ones. It's easy to look at them and ask myself why I ever posted them.

However, if I didn't do this quick sketches, maybe I would have never gotten into art.

So, I will keep them on my blog, this little digital post to call my own, as a reminder that art is a journey.

A hard journey sometimes.

But you can only get better with invested effort and time. 

 I have updated this post in 2025! Why? Because I wanted to add a few more portraits as a reminder to myself that one does get better if one practices. 

Maybe my portraits weren't much good in the past, and maybe they still aren't good enough to be considered accomplished, but they do show me one thing- and that is that I do have some artistic inspiration and style. 

So, have a look at my original watercolour portraits verses some other portraits drawn with oil pastels.

finished painting/ dovršena slika

painting in progress/ slikanje u tijeku

vodene boje/ watercolour

painting in progress/ slikanje  u tijeku

watercolour (finished)/ akvarel (završen)

oil pastel portraits vs messy watercolour

NOW, that you have seen my original portraits, you can have a look at some other of my work. ...and check out links to my other art posts. 

1) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2022/01/a-portrait-of-woman-with-long-dark-hair.html

In this post, I will share a new watercolour portrait sketch with you. I didn't use a reference for this one, I just sketched it from my head. The idea was to practice 3/4 side portrait. I feel like I need all the portrait practice I can get. I remind myself that quick portrait practice still counts.  I'm still not very focused on portrait making, but I do like doing these quick portrait sketches. I know I will need to invest a lot more time and effort if I want my portraits painting to start looking as good as my landscape paintings, but I feel these quick sketches help me stay in shape until I set aside enough time to get better at portrait art. Right now, I still don't have a definite style when it comes to portraits. Anyhow, this one was actually supposed to remain just a quick sketch, but at one point I just decided to finish it. So, I added more detail and basically turned it into a quick portrait.

2) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2021/04/5-mini-portraits-watercolour-pencils.html

In this post, I shared some quick mini portraits. I made quite a few of these in the past week. I like to work on these mini portraits to keep in 'portrait art' shape while I work on landscape paintings. I often sketch these portraits in my smaller sketchbooks or I just sketch many small ones (on the same page) in my larger sketchbook. You had a change of seeing some of these mini portraits in my last post (the focus was on crepe eggs, but if you remember I included some mini portraits as well). Sometimes I also like to thrown in elements from my other illustrations, for example borrow roses from another painting I did. It saves me time not having to paint the roses every time. It also works well with placing these illustrations of products.  

3) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2020/12/new-art-update-five-watercolour.html

In this post, I shared with you six new watercolour portraits.  The medium for all of them is watercolour pencils on mixed media paper (from one of my sketchbooks). These portraits are mostly a product of my imagination. I did use some of my own photographs as references just so that I can challenge myself to paint a face from different angles but none of them are actual self-portraits (or at least not intended as such)

4) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2021/04/fashion-illustration-friday-peak-into.html

In this post, I shared both fashion illustrations and mini portraits.

5) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2021/12/art-update-watercolour-pencil-female.html

In this post, I shared four portraits! I used reference for some of them. 

6) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2021/12/a-peak-into-my-sketchbook-watercolour.html

In this post, I shared a few watercolour pencil portraits from my sketchbook! Watercolour pencils enable me to work quickly, so they are a good choice for watercolour portrait sketches. Portraits are not one of my strengths. That's why I've been trying to do more portrait sketches.  Practice makes it perfect, as they say. Unlike my landscape art, I still don't have a definite style when it comes to portraits, I expect it might take months or even years before I develop one. It's alright, I'm not in a hurry. Art is a subject as vast and mysterious as the universe, one could spend more than one life time exploring just one aspect of it. I'm fine with being more focused on seascapes and landscapes for the time being, but I still want to do portrait sketches on a regular basis. Even if I don't end up focusing on portraits in my pursuit of art, I know doing these sketches will help me develop my art skills. 

7) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2014/12/potraits-portreti.html

This is one of my old post that has been updated with my new portrait art, so it's also a good reference for improvement. 

8) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2021/01/an-oil-pastel-portraits-and-12-most.html

This post shared some of my pastel oil portrait art, that is  a few oil pastels portraits I did on a mixed media paper. This is a medium I'm still not very confident using. In fact, you could say that I'm still learning how to use oil pastels. I drew these portraits without any plan or intention, just to practice proportions and drawing with oil pastels but I kind of like how they turned out.  If I remember correctly, they didn't take too much time to finish. You can see them below.

9) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2021/01/a-watercolour-sketch-portrait-inspired.html

The medium for this portrait sketch is Staetdler watercolour pencils on mixed media paper (from my new art create sketchbook). As you will see in this post, the sketch was made on a small frame paper. I might redo this sketch on a larger scale paper to capture more details and make it more realistic. That is if I find the time. I think this one isn't bad for a quick watercolour pencils sketch. Visit my original post to see the photograph I used for reference (a promotional photograph for the show) as well as the digital version I created with my watercolour sketch. 

10) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2021/06/fashion-illustration-friday-coloured.html

This post featured some fashion illustrations, but also quite a few portrait sketches. 

11) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2014/07/3-portraits-oil-paints-tri-portreta.html

This post shows my old portraits done with oils (on paper! so unprofessional :) but I guess I didn't know any better)

12) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2019/04/two-new-pastel-portraits-redbubble.html

This post features two of my oil pastel portrait drawings. 

13) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-world-of-pencil-collaboration.html

This post features a pencil portrait with a random catalogue reference but done in my style.

14) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2017/04/drawing-of-day-big-eyes-long-hair-crtez.html

This post features a pencil drawing accompanied with some other pencil portraits. This is also once of those updated post.

15) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-world-of-pencil-friendship-svijet.html

This post also features a pencil portrait but this time of two girls. If I remember correctly, the photo reference was some vintage catalogue. 

16 ) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2017/03/asking-right-kind-of-questions-it-is.html

This post focusing on body perception also features a marker illustration that is a portrait sketch of sorts.

17) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2017/02/blue-tears-red-crown-painting-of-day.html

This is also one of those old art posts that were updated to feature more of my art.

18) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2023/03/friday-fashion-illustration-two.html

Another fashion illustration post that features portrait sketches. I often combine portrait sketches with my fashion illustrations. This makes sense as my illustrations are rarely just illustrations of clothes. Instead, they're usually illustrations capturing both a person and outfit.  

19) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2021/04/a-stylized-mini-portrait-sketch.html

I also remembered this cute stylized mini portrait sketch that I haven't shared yet. When I say a stylized portrait, it means that the portrait isn't mean to be realistic. You can think of it as a creative and non-realistic portrait style. What is typically meant as stylized portrait invokes images of anime, fashion illustration, Disney or any mainstream cartoon drawing style to my mind. You know, the big or exaggerated eyes, barely there nose and puffy lips- that kind of thing. I typically draw in this style only when I'm making fashion illustrations. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure it was my intention to draw in this style for this mini portrait. In all honesty, I made this sketch to practice drawing hands and food. In addition, choosing this reference might had something to do with my sugar craving. I have temporarily cut all sugar from my diet so I'm taking comfort in illustrating sweets.

20) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2021/04/happy-easter-with-floral-portrait-art.html

In this post I shared quite a few portrait sketches!

Thank you for visiting!