Is exact likeness necessary in art?

Heeeello again,

When I was posting my progress of the last portrait on Instagram, a friend of mine asked me if I could draw her and I kept trying to decide what to do in the back of my mind while I finished.

So I decided to make this my next project and I started gathering some reference photos from her and this is my final result.  

I must admit that the resemblance to the original isn't 100% exact.  I had my doubts about finishing the drawing cause of it but I still did anyways because I thought it would be good practice.

Overall I'm satisfied with the result.

I however ran into several doubts this past week with my art.  I was creating something that didn't receive the amount of praise I was looking for, there I said it. :/  You shouldn't rely on the idea that people should love what you do to continue doing it.  

I had a nice long conversation with a friend of mine from college recently and she knocked some sense into me.  I was so afraid of creating wrong art and not pleasing people and what she told me was that there is no such thing as bad art and that I shouldn't worry about criticism too much.

After all isn't art suppose to be your interpretation of the subject.

I'll end it at that before I ramble too much. O.o

What are your thoughts,

Should exact likeness be necessary in art?

Until next time :)

More Portrait Drawing Practice

I finished another portrait drawing, this one is of Candice Accola, Caroline from Vampire Diaries.  I love that show and she is one of my favorite characters on the show.  It took me sometime to finish because I could only put in about 1hr per day sometimes less.  It was a lot of fun to create though.

I really liked the process of drawing portraits and I'm quite satisfied with the result I got this week compared to what I posted last week.  I'm already thinking of how my next one will look.  I'll be working on that this coming week and post the results as soon as I'm done. :)

I'll probably be posting the process on Instagram like I did with this one.

Until next time, cya 

Portrait Drawing

I'm happy to say that I dramatically increased the amount of drawing hours I'm putting in per week.  At least on the weekends.  I haven't really done much work for "The Natural Way to Draw" book. :/  I still am committed to complete it though.

Recently I've been working on improving my portrait drawings.

I haven't drawn a portrait in over 5 years and I found it quite relaxing and enjoyable.  Although I'm not completely satisfied with the results >.<  I thought I would share with you my first attempt.  

I'm currently working on another portrait drawing that I'll post soon.  I'm just being more picky on this new one.

I'm starting to post more often on my instagram account.

You can find me using this username

cpena_dream

Sorry for delay on posts :/  My new goal is to post at least once per week.

Thanks for reading, until next time, cya