It always takes me a little while to get used to the change of paper when I start a new watercolour sketchbook, especially if I’ve changed from one brand to another. My last one was a Fabriano Venezia and this is only my second painting in my new one, a Moleskine, so I’m still making that adjustment, but I’m pretty happy with how David’s portrait turned out.
It’s not often that I draw a whole person and even rarer that I do a portrait of a child, but who can resist a child in a dinosaur jacket? Not me. This is from a photo posted by Meredith on the Museum by Sktchy app.
I love drawing glasses and sunglasses and any kind of reflected light in portraits. I had a lot of fun with the green sunnies in this portrait of Kathryn from Museum by Sktchy.
I drew her with a Unipin fineliner in a Fabriano Venezia sketchbook, painted her with Daniel Smith and Zecchi Toscana watercolour and finished the portrait off with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
This is India from the Museum by Sktchy app drawn and painted in a Fabriano Venezia sketchbook with a Unipin fineliner, watercolours and coloured pencils.
This is turning into a very stressful week, mainly due to my father being unwell and in hospital. At times like these drawing and painting are the best therapy. These are the times when it is, of course, hardest to find the time to just stop, sit and draw. It can seem the least important thing to do when there are one hundred and one other demands on your time. But I know that, for me, it’s the most important thing to do.
I have chronic and persistent migraine, which means that I have migraines on between 15 and 25 days in any month. Of course I woke up with one today and have been nauseous and vomiting on and off all day. I know this is stress-related and the best couple of hours I’ve had all day have been those I spent drawing this portrait. I know that taking some time out to draw increases the chances that I will have a migraine-free day tomorrow.
Thank you to Julie from the Museum by Sktchy app for being the muse for my portrait today which was made with watercolour and coloured pencils in a Fabriano Venezia sketchbook.
I got to spend a couple of hours with my watercolours and coloured pencils drawing and painting Cuervo from the Museum by Sktchy app. I’ve got a migraine today but I find drawing for an hour or two helps me to focus and forget the pain, at least for a little while, so long as I have enough natural light to work by (I can’t cope with artificial light or too bright natural light).
I had surgery to implant both a spinal cord stimulator and dorsal root stimulator in my spine a week ago today. It’s been a rough first week of recovery and today is the first day I’ve felt able to art, but I’ve managed a whole portrait.
This is Lina from the Museum by Sktchy app painted in watercolour and finished with coloured pencils,
This is the lovely Amina from the Museum by Sktchy app, painted with watercolour and then finished off with coloured pencils in my Fabriano Venezia sketchbook.
This portrait of Victoria from the Museum by Sktchy app was a complete disaster at the watercolour stage. I’d applied the watercolour much more quickly than I usually do and it looked muddy, without much colour definition. So I left it overnight and came back to it the next day with fresh eyes,
Then I started working on it with coloured pencils and, without too much work, they transformed it into a portrait that I really like. I focused on adding more definition to the shadows and more yellow and pink to the areas where those had turned into mud at the watercolour stage. And I tried not to get too hung up over the hair, where I can often get very worked up about not really knowing what to do.
All in all I’m really happy with the portrait, especially considering where it was halfway through. And the moral of the story is to ever give up on a portrait because it always has something to teach you.
Drawing when I can at the moment. Took a couple of days drawing this portrait of Karina from the Museum by Sktchy app in snatched moments between work and everything else. Still searching for my drawing mojo but always happy to have actually completed a portrait.
drawing faces 