I recently started drawing, and my New Year’s Resolution is to get good at drawing portraits, then for Christmas, give my family and friends portraits of themselves or others.
First of all, do people generally like getting portraits of themselves? Is it too much of a look-how-clever-I-am present??
Next, what’s the best way to print a drawing I’ve done in Krita?
To show you where I stand, here’s a portrait I just finished, drawn from my sister’s graduation photo (taken sixty years ago):
Thanks!
From my experience people pretty much like getting artworks for free, especially traditional ones. But I also noticed that when you’re not good enough they can see it as mockery, it really depends on the person.
In my family at least, digital art never was something that was seen as a skill because mostly they didn’t understand that it involves a lot of effort and knowledge and it wasn’t just “the computer doing all the work” (like modern AI only that they imagined it like that 20 years ago).
Perhaps you can probe your relatives a bit by casually bringing up the topic in a conversation and see how they react
For the printing part of it, DPI (dots per inch) becomes a more important consideration for the output resolution and the printer you use.
The short answer is to consider the print size you want and work with that size canvas. 8x10 for a standard portrait example, at 300 DPI (basic good printer) would be an image 2400 pixels x 3000 pixels, at 300 DPI.
As for art as a gift, I agree it really depends on the crowd. Not so much portraits, but when I was more active, I was into a good bit of photography and worked my own output from the digital camera. Then depending on what I was doing or the time of year, I would make birthday cards or holiday cards or I knew a particular location was someones favorite. Knowing ahead they would enjoy some gift/print or such, I could plan on a gift or two (or several) during the year that would really make their day. It’s custom made, hand drawn in your case, it’s personal and unique.
I even have a photo from when my wife and I were dating. We had gone to the Sand Dunes here in CO and she had drawn on the sand almost like carving your initials into a tree. Well, needless to say, I couldn’t let go. At the camera shop they had a thing where you could get a small marble something or other stone with the print etched in it…and the card I made to go with it was “What was once written on the sand is now written in stone.” She loved it and it was actually put together by her bridesmaid in a shadow box with some other small items as their gift to her at the wedding.
On the other hand, if art’s not really their thing, it might be a swing and a miss.
Very nice drawing, too. Well done.
Good luck, hope it works out.
HL
An artist friend of mine sends painted holiday/Christmas post cards every year and while I am always happy to get one and collect them as they are trading cards, her parents simply throw them in the bin, from what I know.
These are polar opposites and I don’t want to discourage you. I just want to mention again that it’s worth scouting the terrain head of time to avoid disappointment on both sides.
