This is a drawing from Sktchy muse North’s collection of photos. It’s a portrait of a child and, as usual, I’ve made her look years older than she looks in the photo. I think it’s because I’ve elongated her face – something I have a tendency to do a lot of the time. but I love how the hair and eyes turned out so it’s not all bad.
I drew the portrait in my Midori Cotton sketchbook with Copic markers and Prismacolor coloured pencils.
Drawing Sktchy muse Michael’s hair was the best part of drawing this portrait. What fabulous hair he’s got!
I drew this portrait in my Midori Cotton sketchbook with Copic markers and Prismacolor coloured pencils.
This May I’m going to be part of an artists open house in the Brighton Fringe Festival. The open house is at the National Trust’s Saddlescombe Farm, and will raise funds for the Grow Project, a project which helps support people experiencing mental health problems by connecting them with nature.
The theme for the open house is “Spirit of Place” and I’ll be putting some prints of my more nature-themed portraits up for sale. I already have some portraits that I know I’ll be using but I also want to create some new work to make into cards and possibly postcards, so I’ll be making more nature-themed portraits over the next few weeks. This portrait of Melody’s owl is the first of these.
I drew the owl in my Midori Cotton sketchbook with Copic markers, coloured pencils and a Uniball Signo gel pen.
This is Inna, drawn in a Midori Cotton sketchbook with Copic markers and Prismacolor coloured pencils.
Sktchy muse Tiffanie has the kind of face I love to draw. Perfect pale skin that reflects light beautifully. Straight hair – for so long hair was my nightmare to draw and I still find straight dark hair so soothing to draw because it’s so much more straightforward than any other kind. And well defined bone structure that’s easy for me to capture. I could happily draw her every day for the rest of my life.
I drew this portrait in my Midori Cotton sketchbook with a Unipin fineliner, Copic markers and Prismacolor coloured pencils.
Today’s Sktchy portrait is of Loke. I drew him in my Midori Cotton sketchbook using a grey a Unipin fineliner, Copic markers and Prismacolor coloured pencils.
At the moment my Copic markers are being very leaky. Every time I do a Copic portrait I seem to end up with a large pool of Copic ink on the page. Fortunately Midori sketchbook pages don’t feather ink very much, it just dries in a pool creating a watercolour-like effect which is accentuated by my recent switch from black to dark fineliner s for my linework. This is definitely the most watercolour like Copic portrait I’ve drawn so far. But it was all Copic markers in a Midori Cotton sketchbook with some coloured pencil over the top to finish it off.
This is Joey. We met Joey 18 months ago at the Dogs Trust Rescue Centre in Shoreham-by-Sea. He’d been waiting there for us for around 3 years. We visited him most days for a month to get to know him before he was comfortable enough with us to let us adopt him. Now he’s been living happily with us for more than a year and we adore him. He’s most happy snuggled under the duvet with someone or with a toy in his mouth playing a pulling game.
He’s still a very nervous dog and always will be. He hates my phone camera and usually walks away when he sees it so I have to be sneaky with toys or treats to get smiley photos like this one. But this is a great photo for a portrait. And Anna, his trainer at the Dogs Trust, requested more portraits of Joey. So here’s number one.
I drew Joey in my Midori Cotton sketchbook with Copic markers and Prismacolor coloured pencils.
I’m still adjusting to the paper in my new sketchbook. I always forget what a difference paper makes to my drawings and that it will take me a week or two to adjust to working in a new book. I’ve worked in a Midori Cotton before, but it was a while ago, so I’m definitely having to readjust to the slickness of the paper again. But this is always a fun process!
I drew Yasmin with Copic markers and Prismacolor coloured pencils in an A5 Midori Cotton sketchbook.
All my portraits go through an ugly phase. That’s part of my process. When they’re looking ugly, I just have to have faith in my process, not worry about the ugliness, trust that if I just keep going it will end up looking ok. I’m sharing this because I think that beginner portrait artists think that my portraits look great as soon as I start drawing, and that’s just not the way it is. Here’s this portrait at its really ugly stage:
When I first started drawing with Copic markers and was experimenting with shadows and I added grey and my portrait looked like this I was horrified. But at that point I didn’t really have any choice but to carry on and see if I could improve it. So I did and that’s how I developed my portrait method. And I learned not be scared of the ugly phase But to work through it and experiment. It’s probably the most important thing I’ve learned.
I drew James in a Midori Cotton sketchbook with a Unipin dark grey fineliner and Copic markers.
drawing faces 