Author: 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.

Aldebarán

I gave my Bics a workout for this portrait of the amazing Aldebarán from Sktchy. This is much lighter than the very dark inspiration image, but it think it would have looked overworked if I had tried to go much darker and I just liked how it looked at this point.

Can I make a confession here? Although this was inspired by a fantastic photo sometimes I’m drawn to particular muses on Sktchy as much by their names as by how great their photo collection is. I’d never even heard the name Aldebarán before, but I definitely wanted to add it to my portrait collection 🤣

Golshid

This is Golshid from Sktchy drawn with Pilot Eno mechanical pencils.

Ksenia

This is Ksenia from Sktchy painted with Daniel Smith watercolours and finished with Prismacolor coloured pencils.

My favourite watercolours are Zecchi handmade watercolours that I discovered a few years ago on a trip to Florence. I order them online direct from Italy because I’m in live with the richness of their colours. But most of my painting friends rave about Daniel Smith paints so when I saw some on sale at Jacksons Art last week I decided to try them out. I’ve tried a couple of tubes before but I’ve never painted a whole portrait in them before. I think I like them, but one portrait isn’t really enough to base a judgement on. I’ll decide when I’ve done three or four.

Jenell

Jenell is, without a doubt, the queen of Sktchy. I’m fairly sure she’s been drawn more than any other muse, a staggering 3104 times at the time of posting, perhaps not so surprising when you learn that she has a gallery of over 1600 amazing inspiration photos.

A good strategy if you don’t know who to draw on any given day is to head over to Jenell’s gallery and you’re sure to find some inspiration. Having said that, it can be intimidating to draw her because you know she’s be drawn many times by the very best and your portrait is likely to be compared with, e.g. Vin Ganapathy’s. So I haven’t drawn her very often. I think this is my third portrait of her and I still haven’t nailed that likeness. Maybe next time.

Pattes

This is Pattes from Sktchy drawn on my iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil using the Procreate app.

Madina

This is Madina from Sktchy drawn with Bic 4 colour ballpoint pens.

Mikhayla

I’ve been struggling to find time for drawing and painting this week as my workload increases in the rush to tie up project loose ends before things wind down for the Christmas break. But I’ve managed to paint a watercolour of Mikhayla from Sktchy this afternoon.

I’m partway through a Domestika course on watercolour portraits that I started last week and I can see the improvement in this portrait, the first I’ve done sine starting that course. My washes are lighter and much better controlled. Hopefully I’ll find some time to get back to the course before Christmas!

Gen

A fun draw for today – this is Gen from Sktchy drawn with Copic markers, Polychromos coloured pencils and a white gel pen.

Kiana

This is Kiana from Sktchy. I was so happy with how the face worked out that when it came to drawing the hair I really didn’t know what to do with it. I’ve spent two days messing about in Procreate with all kinds of ideas and not liked any of them so erased each one. In the end I decided to simply draw it in and leave it with this cool blue background because I didn’t want to draw too much attention away from the face.

Jolynn

This portrait of Jolynn is drawn from a fantastic inspiration photo on Sktchy. I don’t draw enough older people; whenever I do I’m reminded of how great their faces are to draw. Jolynn’s face is so interesting and full of character and it’s so much easier to get a likeness when you’re not drawing young smooth featureless skin!

I also decided to ditch my scan of this portrait and use a photo of it instead. The scan bleached out the image too much, whereas the photo retained more of the yellow and the texture of the paper and the portrait just looks more interesting.