Today’s portrait is of Jenny, and all I could think of as I was drawing this portrait was the fairytale The Snow Queen. All the time I’m drawing I’m having a conversation with my subject and as I was drawing this I was most definitely talking to the Snow Queen, more than with Jenny 🙂
I drew Jenny on my iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil using the Procreate app.
I haven’t managed to post many Christmas cards this year but I have managed to draw one Christmas portrait – of the very handsome Ogim, dressed up in his Christmas hat. This is my way of wishing all my followers a very Merry Christmas or happy holidays if you don’t celebrate Christmas.
I played with some of the new Procreate brushes to create this portrait, mostly the Hartz and Aurora brushes. I’ve also turned the portrait into a GIF – my first ever use of the animation feature in Procreate, which was fun. You can see that in action on my Instagram feed.
I drew Ogim in Procreate 5 on my iPad Pro using an Apple Pencil.
P.S. I’ve just discovered that Instagram doesn’t allow GIFs, so you can see the GIF on my Twitter account here .
I’m still struggling to find time to draw but I’m hoping that as work winds down for the Christmas holidays later this week that will get easier and I’ll find some good creative time. My daughter’s internship ends on Friday too so I won’t have get up early every day to drop her at the train station – it’s shocking how much that eats at my spoons and leaves me with no energy for anything else by mid-afternoon. But I did manage a sketch of Noel for this week’s Old School Sktchy anatomy challenge.
I drew Noel on my iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil using the Procreate app and the new Peppermint pencil brush in Procreate 5.
Blue is my favourite colour. I find it soothing, cooling, calming. I also have a long history of severe depression and blue is, of course, the colour associated with sadness. Today I am feeling blue (post-election blues after yesterday’s UK election) and it felt right to draw a blue portrait. It so happens that Sktchy is having a Blue Portrait Party this week, which gave me even more of a reason to draw a blue portrait. So here is Adah looking much paler and bluer than she does in the inspiration photo!
I drew Adah on my iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil using the Procreate app.
This is the lovely Dayris. In the Sktchy inspiration photo she is standing in front of amazing floral wallpaper. I didn’t want to even attempt to recreate that paper. Instead I created my own patterned background using some floral digital stamps I made for another project.
I drew Dayris’ portrait on my iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil using the Procreate app, Lisa Bardot’s Copicat brushes and my own digital stamps.
I love how this portrait of Izabelle captures the sense of her without being a realistic drawing of her. That wasn’t intentional. I’m always seeking likeness when I’m drawing portraits but in this case I lost it far more than usual but ended up with what I feel is a great representation of her nevertheless (much more so than many of my portraits that capture a good likeness!).
I drew Izabelle on my iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil using the Procreate app.
I drew this portrait of Bailey on my iPad Pro using the Procreate app and Lisa Bardot’s pencil box brushes.
With this portrait of Hope I was trying here to see if I could use a ballpoint pen brush in Procreate to create a portrait similar to the ones I’ve been drawing in my Moleskine – but I really struggled. I was using a good brush I think but I couldn’t get my pressure/sensitivity right – and I ended up losing the likeness. And it took FOREVER! So I think I might stick to the analogue tools in future.
This portrait of Chester is my submission for this week’s Old School Sktchy WAX challenge for which the prompt is “Frida”. I’ve drawn lots of people in Frida Kahlo-style flower crowns in the past so today I decided to draw Chester the pharaoh hound instead.
I drew Chester on my iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil using the Procreate app.
This time of year is always my busiest time of year work-wise and fitting in drawing around work is always a bit of a challenge. So I do what I can, breaking up my portrait drawing into manageable sections that I squeeze in between my various work projects and meetings. I think it sometimes means that the portraits look less well thought through than the ones I complete in a single session, but it’s all practice and it’s all learning.
This was drawn on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil using the Procreate app.
drawing faces 