Category: painting

Ava

This is Ava from Sktchy painted with Zecchi watercolours and finished with Polychromos coloured pencils.

Luke

This is Luke from Sktchy. Trying to focus while watching TV news coverage of the US election 24/7….

Julia

How I have missed my watercolours and coloured pencils during the past month of Inktober! This is Julia from Sktchy painted in my Moleskine watercolour sketchbook.

Katie

I’m getting very frustrated by constantly losing likenesses in these ballpoint pen drawings but it’s all practice. This is Katie from Sktchy but it doesn’t look like her!

RBG

I’m not an American but even here on the other side of the pond many of us, especially women, are deeply grateful for the life, work and inspiration of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the US Supreme Court Justice and feminist icon who died yesterday. I am certainly feeling her loss today and she was the only person I could possibly draw.

I painted this in a Moleskine watercolour sketchbook with Zecchi Toscana watercolours then warmed on it with Luminance coloured pencils. Then I scanned it in to my iPad Pro and worked on it some more in Procreate using Lisa Bardot’s Pencil Box brushes.

Sydney

This is Sydney from Sktchy. I’m really happy with this portrait. I think i did a good job of combining watercolour and coloured pencils. I can see mistakes, of course, but I’m enjoying the direction my work is going at the moment.

I drew Sydney in a Moleskine watercolour sketchbook with a Unipin grey brush fineliner, painted her with Sennelier watercolours and finished the portrait off with Prismacolor coloured pencils.

Luca

Experimenting a little bit today with coloured pencil over watercolour for today’s portrait or Luca.

Nik

For me, part of the fun of drawing is choosing the media to use for a portrait. That’s why I use so many different drawing materials rather than just sticking with one favourite. This portrait of Nik from Sktchy is a great example. In the inspiration photo she’s looking a little dishevelled in the middle of clouds of coloured gas and haze and the question for me was how I could best portray that. Watercolour and coloured pencil seemed the best option and I think they’ve worked well here, especially for the gas in the background.

I used Sennelier watercolours and Prismacolor coloured pencils in a Moleskine watercolour sketchbook.

Daria

I decided to switch things up a little by putting my favourite Zecchi watercolours aside for a while and get some of my other watercolour sets out of the drawer. I have several different sets and most of them sit unused for most of the year, especially if I don’t travel at all, as has happened this year. So for this portrait of Daria from Sktchy I used my Sennelier paints.

Sennelier are my favourite of the mass market watercolours – like Zecchi they have a honey binder, and that seems to be what is distinctive about all the paints I like the most. As usual I painted this in my Moleskine watercolour sketchbook.

Lucia

Sometimes an inspiration image is so great it tells a story all by itself. You don’t need to do nothing except draw or paint it. Once you’ve done that the story is there on the page for the viewer to see and interpret as they see fit. The inspiration photo for this portrait of Lucia from Sktchy is one of those images. It’s such a perfect photo of a young woman with her hair in big pink rollers, not the kind of image very often these days, yet something that speaks of a very familiar past to anyone born more than 30 or so years ago. I love it and I loved painting it.

I drew this with a Unipin dark grey brush pen, painted it with Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished it with Prismacolor coloured pencils in a Moleskine watercolour sketchbook.