James

All my portraits go through an ugly phase. That’s part of my process. When they’re looking ugly, I just have to have faith in my process, not worry about the ugliness, trust that if I just keep going it will end up looking ok. I’m sharing this because I think that beginner portrait artists think that my portraits look great as soon as I start drawing, and that’s just not the way it is. Here’s this portrait at its really ugly stage:

When I first started drawing with Copic markers and was experimenting with shadows and I added grey and my portrait looked like this I was horrified. But at that point I didn’t really have any choice but to carry on and see if I could improve it. So I did and that’s how I developed my portrait method. And I learned not be scared of the ugly phase But to work through it and experiment. It’s probably the most important thing I’ve learned.

I drew James in a Midori Cotton sketchbook with a Unipin dark grey fineliner and Copic markers.

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hareinthemoon

I love drawing things. These days I am rarely found without a pen, pencil or stylus in my hands. In my working life I spend a lot of time in meetings and classrooms, reading papers and strategies, so my home life provides a creative antidote to all that! I also have chronic pain, lots of it. I have scoliosis, fibromyalgia and CRPS, so my life is a balancing act, trying to balance work, which make me feel part of the real world, with pain, which is ever present, and art, which soothes my pain.

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