The Financial Times has analysed figures released by the Office of National Statistics and estimates that the real figure for COVID-19 related deaths in the UK as of yesterday was in the region of 41,000, more than double the government’s official figure (https://www.ft.com/content/67e6a4ee-3d05-43bc-ba03-e239799fa6ab).
41,000 people dead, and I’ve seen today’s figure put at 43,000. I have no words to adequately express my feelings. I can barely breathe when I try to imagine that number of people grieving for their loved ones. How many more…
I painted Jackie’s portrait in my Moleskine watercolour sketchbook with Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished it with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
Thanks to Sktchy muse Milena for providing the inspiration for today’s portrait. It was drawn in my Moleskine watercolour sketchbook with a Unipin fineliner, painted with Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
This is Richard, today’s Sktchy face. I’ve lost his likeness a little and made him look more melancholy than he does in the Sktchy inspiration photo, but I like the painting a lot nevertheless.
I drew the portrait in a Moleskine watercolour sketchbook with a Unipin fineliner, painted it with my everyday Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished it off with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
Today’s Sktchy portrait is of Tara. I chose this inspiration photo because it reflects how I look on Zoom midway through most afternoons these days – though considerably older and less attractive, it’s the expression and posture I’m referring to really. I’ve always done some of my work remotely via Zoom but I’m finding spending the day going from one Zoom meeting to another with little time to breathe in between exhausting.
Spending so much time in front of a screen is also making my chronic migraines even more frequent than usual. So, despite all the advice not to touch our faces, I’m afraid I’m head-in-hand or head-clutching even more often than usual.
Having said all that, I know I’m lucky to still have work. In fact, I’ve got more work now than I had before the lockdown and I don’t want to complain about that, not least because I don’t know how long it will last. As anyone reading this who’s also self-employed will know, the curse of self-employment is that you have to take the work when it’s there because you never know what the future might hold, and that’s especially true in these Coronavirus days. I’m just hoping that my eyes, body and brain will adjust and the migraines will ease over the next few weeks.
I drew this portrait in a Moleskine watercolour sketchbook, painted it with Zecchi watercolours and finished it with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
If you’ve been following this blog for a while you probably didn’t know a month ago that I have a history of mental health problems. It’s not that I hide it, I don’t. I may we’ll have mentioned here before, I’m not sure. It’s just that it’s generally not that relevant to my drawing. But that all changed with the C-19 lockdown.
Drawing, painting, any kind of art, has been an essential therapeutic activity for me since I started to draw 5 or 6 years ago. But it’s only in the last week or so that I’ve actually used my choice of portrait to process my emotions. I tried to write about how I was feeling last week but it was too difficult.
I think many people don’t understand how triggering this situation is for people with a history of mental health problems. I had severe depression and anxiety which left me agoraphobic for a long time. Learning to leave the house again regularly and relatively easily was a long slow difficult process. Not being able to triggers very difficult memories and the fear of a relapse. It’s hard to write about all the feelings I have without provoking intense anxiety, it’s much easier to draw a portrait that reflects my feelings, and doing that reduces my anxiety.
Today this is the image that best fits my mood because I want to roar. Not in anger, this is more of a shout-out, a roar-out, for all those amazing people in my online mental health community who are managing those difficulties in this lockdown with minimal help, if any, from mental health services AND supporting each other. Yes, healthcare workers and delivery drivers are amazing but so is someone who has ever had OCD who is coping with all the public health messages about a virus and handwashing. I’m so grateful to my mental health community both on and offline for being there for me and for everyone else who needs them right now.
Thanks to Sktchy muse Adamo for being inspiration for today’s portrait, which I painted with watercolours in a Moleskine watercolour sketchbook.
No angst today, just a straightforward portrait of Sktchy muse Cabot. I painted this in my Moleskine watercolour sketchbook with my Zecchi watercolours and finished it with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
Oh my, I struggled with the hair on Anna’s portrait . This was my second inked version of the portrait- the first one I experimented with a brush pen on thee hair using heavier inked lines but hated the result so much I drew the whole portrait all over again. But I still didn’t get the hair right. I don’t like it at all. But tomorrow is another day and I’ll draw another portrait.
I drew Anna in my Moleskine watercolour sketchbook with a Unipin fineliner, painted her with Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished the portrait with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
I’ve been finding it so hard to focus on drawing this week as, in Britain, we move, at a snail’s pace, towards a coronavirus lockdown. But today, finally, I found a little bit of focus as I drew the beautiful Summer for this weekend’s Sktchy Calm Portrait challenge. It was lovely to forget the world for a couple of hours and just paint.
I drew this portrait in my Moleskine watercolour sketchbook with a Unipin fineliner, painted it with Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished it with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
Sktchy muse Sid has the most amazing face. I scarcely lifted my pen from the paper when drawing this portrait, it came so readily. I usually start my portraits with the eyes but I started this one with nose because Sid’s nose is so commanding I really had to begin there, and it was a good decision. Everything else made sense once I had the nose down.
I draw Sid with a Unipin fineliner in a Moleskine watercolour sketchbook, painted him with Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished the portrait with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
This portrait of an aspiring Harry Potter was a case of “more haste, less speed”. It’s my entry for this week’s Old School Sktchy weekly challenge which has the theme “Harry Potter” and I ended up trying to fit it in between dog walks and hospital visits (my husband is in hospital this week). The result was that I feel that I rushed every stage of it and nothing quite worked. Lesson learned.
I painted this portrait in my Moleskine watercolour sketchbook with Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished it with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
drawing faces 