Tag: Bic

Jacob

I love it when people upload photos of themselves pulling faces onto Sktchy. It’s so much more interesting to draw unusual facial expressions than the regular “straight to camera” smile.

If you’re a Sktchy muse reading this and wondering what kind of photos you need to post to get drawn, this is something Sktchy artists are always talking about off-site. Personally I like clear crisp photos with great eyes, interesting skin tones, good shadows, freckles, lots of reflected light, hands… no photo will have everything I want but those are things that catch my eye. Photos I avoid are ones that are too blurry, anything that has been touched up to create clear smooth skin (it might look great in beauty photos but it’s totally uninteresting to paint), and lots of teeth (teeth are most artists’ nightmare and I struggle to make them look good), and ones with Snapchat filters of any kind.

But at the end of the day everyone has their own personal preference and what I don’t like might well appeal to someone else – so don’t be put off from posting your favourite photos. Most importantly, as with all social media, interact with people and comment on their work. I always check out the photos of everyone who comments on my work to see if they have photos I might want to draw.

Villanelle

Today I’ve been working on another page in my little sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project 2021. My Screen Queen for today is Villanelle from the wonderful BBC drama “Killing Eve“, played by Jodie Comer. I’m beginning to realise that most of my Screen Queens are kick ass women with assertively violent streaks. Not sure what that says about me 🙂

Raman

This is Raman from Sktchy. I drew him in my Life Noble Note Plain sketchbook with Bic 4 colour ballpoint pens.

Andréa

This is another page in my Screen Queens sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project. It’s a portrait of Andréa Martel from the French drama Call My Agent, played by Camille Cottin, who is unquestionably my lockdown screen queen.

Megan

This is Megan from Sktchy drawn with a couple of Bic 4 colour ballpoint pens. I love how these 4 colour pens force me to work with a limited palette but I realised after I’d drawn this how lazy I’ve become with some of my lines. I’m happy enough with the face here but the hair is very lazy – I didn’t bother to define it in the early stages of the drawing and so it just became a mass of colour below the ear. I’m going to try to take more care with my drawing in future and work on improving this.

O-Ren Ishii

This is another portrait for my “Screen Queens” sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project 2021. It’s a portrait of O-Ren Ishii from the Kill Bill movie trilogy, played by Lucy Liu.

Nob

This is a portrait of Nob from Sktchy. The portrait was an experiment to see if the coloured pencil chiaroscuro method I learned last week would work with ballpoint pens. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

Amelie

This is another page from my sketchbook for Brooklyn Art Library’s “The Sketchbook Project 2021”. I chose the theme “no erasing” because I wanted to use ballpoint pens throughout the sketchbook and the title of my book is “Screen Queens”. This queen is Amelie, played by Audrey Tautou.

Gen

Still working through this mini crisis of confidence, which is showing up in my lines at the moment I think. But I know that if I persevere sooner or later I’ll find my way through. In the meantime you can enjoy (or not) seeing how it shows up in my work 😂. This is Gen from Sktchy drawn in Bic ballpoint pen.

Zoë Washburne

My second portrait for my “Screen Queens” sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project 2021 is Zoë Washburne from the cult TV show Firefly and the movie Serenity, played by the very awesome Gina Torres. Firefly is definitely in my top 10 favourite TV shows ever and Zoë is a totally badass.