Category: art

Nelly

This week Sktchy are having a Calm Portrait Party and this portrait of Nelly is my entry for that challenge. The inspiration photo is such a beautiful one (I drew a portrait from a similar photo of Nelly’s a year or so ago and that remains one of my favourite portraits) and I so enjoyed drawing from it. As you can see I was experimenting again with coloured pencils- but on my iPad Pro again.

Yes this was drawn on an iPad Pro, not in a sketchbook. I created a coloured and textured paper background so that I could use lighter colours and they would show up. Once I started drawing I decided to use a lighter touch with my hatching on the skin especially and I think this was a good decision. I drew this with the Procreate app using Georg’s Blackwing Pencil brush (my favourite drawing brush).

Puffin

This week’s Old School Sktchy WAX challenge theme is “fish”. Never one to take the conventional approach, I ignored Sktchy’s many photos of people with fish and instead chose to draw those beautiful image of a puffin with a mouthful of fish, posted by Africa Shepherd. I’ve never drawn a puffin before so I loved learning about the shape and colours of a puffin’s beak and eye as I drew it. Everything’s interesting when you draw it (I stole that line from Sketchbook Skool).

I drew my puffin in an A4 Moleskine sketchbook with Copic markers, a white Posca pen, Crayola Shimmers metallic coloured pencils and Prismacolor coloured pencils.

Walton

This is a really problematic portrait of Sktchy muse Walton. It’s a very poor likeness and a poor portrait. I got the eyes wrong and I ended up focusing too much on the details and forgetting to take a step back and look at the overall image. This is all too easy to do the iPad. So a poor portrait but a useful lesson for me to stop and check the whole portrait regularly while drawing.

This was drawn on a 2nd generation iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil using the Procreate app.

Blud

A couple of weeks ago I promised another Sketchbook Skool student to make a video showing how I paint my watercolour skin tones. So I filmed myself while painting today’s Sktchy face Blud. You can watch the video on my YouTube channel here. I’ll warn you, it’s 50 minutes long (and I only recorded painting the skin) because there’s several layers of glazing. But if you do watch it I hope you find it helpful.

I drew the portrait with a Copic multiliner and painted it with Zecchi Toscana watercolours, Horadam Schminke pearlescent watercolours and Jackson’s Art watercolours in a Laloran sketchbook.

Lauren

This portrait of Sktchy muse Lauren was drawn in an A4 Moleskine sketchbook with Unipin fineliners and Copic markers.

Tarana

As well as having a great artist community, Sktchy also offers some great portrait courses. At the moment I’m taking a course with artist Charlotte Hamilton on drawing patterned portraits. This portrait of Tarana was inspired by this course and this week’s Sktchy Patterned Portrait Party.

It was drawn in a HannehmĂĽhle Nostalgie Sketchbook with coloured pencils (from a variety of makers).

The good news is that, although you need an IOS device to have Sktchy app, you don’t need one to take a Sktchy course because they run on the Mighty Networks platform which is available via an app and a website. If you’re interested in finding out more about Sktchy’s portrait courses you can find out more by visiting the Sktchy shop at https://shop.sktchy.com.

Brit

I have two real Achilles heels (or areas I always struggle with) when it comes to drawing faces. One is drawing mouths, which I always draw too big initially, and the other is hair. It took me such a long time to gain any confidence in drawing hair but mostly these days I can manage it OK, except when I’m making a portrait with watercolour.

I still don’t know quite what to do with it or how to get it looking right. This portrait is a case in point. My anxiety comes through even at the initial drawing stage – I made a mess of the drawing here, and I’m sure I wouldn’t have done had this been the early drawing for a marker portrait. When it came to painting it again I didn’t really have a plan or a clear idea of what to do so I disguised the mess I created with some coloured pencil.

I know I’ll get there. I’ll develop the confidence eventually to draw and paint hair in watercolour confidently and well because I’ve been here before with marker drawing. In the meantime I just have to keep going. And to apologise to Brit, who has beautiful hair.

This was drawn in a Laloran sketchbook with a Unipin fineliner, painted with Zecchi watercolours and finished with coloured pencils.

Murhaf

Sometimes a face just begs to be drawn. Sktchy muse Murhaf’s is one of those faces. And his hair is so awesome I felt that I had to abandon my usual controlled (fear of drawing hair) approach and let rip a bit and it worked.

This was drawn in an A4 Moleskine sketchbook with a Unipin fineliner and Copic markers.

Jerel

I’m part of a closed Facebook group called Old Skool Sktchy where we set the group weekly art challenges (called weekly art extravaganzas or WAX challenges, an idea taken from challenges that used to be set in Sktchy but have been retired). This week’s challenge, tagged #OSSWAXCosplay if you want to find the entries in Sktchy, is the theme cosplay. And this is my entry – Jerel dressed as Link.

I drew this on an iPad Pro with a 2nd Gen Apple Pencil using the Procreate app and Lisa Bardot’s Copicat brushes.

Mad Lab

I’ve only been drawing with coloured pencils for a couple of months so I’m still figuring out a method that works for me. Hatching feels most comfortable, although I sometimes drift into full on shading as I’m hatching, like I did with the hair here.

This is drawn in a HannehmĂĽhle Nostalgie sketchbook from a Sktchy photo provided by Mad Lab Studio. I used a range of coloured pencils – I have a wide selection which includes lots of Prismacolors, a few Derwent Artists pencils, and a very Polychromos and Bruynzeels.