Category: drawing

Joni’s dog

This is a commission that I received through Sktchy. Commissions are always a double-edged sword for me; there’s the thrill that someone wants to pay me to paint a portrait for them, but then there’s the pressure of having to live up to their expectations, to produce something “good”, worth what they are paying.

The way it works on Sktchy is that the artist receives a request to draw a particular photo, which you can then accept or decline. When I saw this photo my first instinct was to decline because the thought of painting a curly haired dog filled me with fear. But, of course, I didn’t, because I love a good challenge – and I’m so glad I didn’t. This dog is a beauty and painting it was such a pleasure. I had to work hard to figure out how to paint that curly hair but I worked it out and I’m so happy with the finished portrait.

I painted Joni’s dog in a Laloran sketchbook with Zecchi watercolours and finished it with Prismacolor coloured pencils.

James

I know it’s inktober but I’m still trying to keep up with my routine of switching between Copics, watercolour, coloured pencils and the iPad for my portraits. So today I used coloured pencils to draw James in my HannehmĂĽhle Nostalgie sketchbook.

Coco

Coco’s portrait is my entry for this week’s Old School Sktchy wax challenge on the theme “literature”, referencing the novel ” Memoirs of a Geisha” by Arthur Golden. It was a really difficult draw because the heavy face makeup means there are so few skintones to work with – and that’s where I focus most of my energy. So I had to concentrate more on the hair decoration, the clothing and the parasol, which aren’t really my strengths. So it was a good challenge for me.

I drew this in a Moleskine sketchbook with Copic markers and coloured pencils.

Thiago/inktober

For people who draw and share their work online October is arguably the most important month of the year. It’s the month of Inktober. Started I don’t know how many years ago by superduper pen and ink artist Jake Parker, it’s the biggest monthly drawing challenge of them all. The challenge is to make a drawing in pen and ink and share it online with the #inktober hashtag every day of the month. Jake posts a set of daily prompts every year at the beginning of September, but you don’t have to follow them, and Inktober is now so huge that there are many, many alternative prompt lists and drawing challenges if Jake’s doesn’t appeal (my favourite alternative is Mab’s Drawlloween Club which you can find on Instagram – follow @mabgraves for that).

I have completed Inktober a couple of times but last year I took a year off. But I felt like I was missing out. So this year I’ve decided to take a relaxed approach and do some days but maybe not everyday. And instead of drawing in my sketchbook I’m going to use it to explore all the digital ink brushes I’ve got but have never used. So this is a portrait of Thiago and is today’s suggested photo for the Sktchy Inktober group and today’s prompt “mindless”. I used the dry ink brush that comes with Procreate to draw it.

If you want to do Inktober or simply find out more about it you can you can visit the Inktober website at https://inktober.com. If you want to see inktober art just search for #inktober on Instagram, Tumblr or Pinterest. I’ll only be posting my faces here; if you want to see the rest of my Inktober art head over to my Instagram account @helenlp.

Lil

What a great face! One of the things I love about the Sktchy app is that it gives portrait artists the opportunity to browse through many thousands (probably millions now I think about it) of photos to find faces that you want to draw. I have over 2000 in my queue waiting to be drawn and just looking through those to find the one I want to draw today can be a major exercise! But most days it’s easy. I usually know what medium I want to work with on any particular day and that guides my choice of photo.

Today was an iPad drawing day and Lil’s photo called out to me as soon as I saw it. I used Lisa Bardot’s pencil box brushes in the Procreate app on my iPad Pro.

Sulphur

Some days I don’t have much time for drawing but I try to maintain my commitment to a daily portrait. That means producing quicker sketchier portraits like this one of Sktchy muse Sulphur. Sometimes I manage to find a better likeness in these quick portraits – I did today.

The amount of time available always affects my choice of medium. I would never choose to draw a portrait with Copic markers if time was short. I might start one on the iPad, knowing I could easily leave it and return to it later. But if I want to start and finish a portrait quickly then I will always choose watercolour or coloured pencils. Today I chose to use Polychromos coloured pencils in a HannehmĂĽhle Nostalgie sketchbook.

Luna

Luna has the perfect face for me to draw. Rosy cheeks, shiny hair, freckles and gorgeous skin tones, she’s right in my Copic comfort zone. And those hair buns were so much fun to draw.

I drew this in my A4 Moleskine sketchbook with an 01 Copic multiliner and Copic markers.

Wael

Playing with line over my watercolour in this portrait of Sktchy muse Wael and struggling to get my drawings finished in time this week as I find myself obsessing over British politics. But I tore myself away from Twitter and drew. I worked this in a Laloran sketchbook with Zecchi watercolours and Prismacolor coloured pencils.

Muffin

Drawing dogs is always so much fun. It’s important to get the eyes and nose right, but the rest is fairly straightforward. Sktchy muse Muffin is soaking up the sun so it was important to get the closed eyes and the shadows more or less right and to capture something of his handsomeness – is that a word? Anyway I’m happy with how it turned out – he looks like a contented doggy.

I drew this in my Moleskine sketchbook with Copic multiliners and markers.

Hannah

This is Sktchy muse Hannah. I drew her on my iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil using the Procreate app and Lisa Bardot’s wonderful Copicat brushes.

I’ve uploaded a Procreate timelapse video of my drawing process to my YouTube channel – if you’d like to watch it you can view it here.