I love drawing sunglasses and I also love the unusual perspective in this portrait. I’m really happy with how the glasses came out but less so with the hair – really need to work on my hair skills! Perhaps I could have spent less time on the glasses and more on the hair 😂
A quick draw of Anatolii in blue biro today – too hot for anything more!
I started drawing and painting Rosi in my Drawing Faces class for Sketchbook Skool and finished it after the class. This was one of those portraits where I think I had a likeness at the drawing stage, then I lost it, got it back at various points, lost it completely and at this finished stage have a sense of her but definitely not a complete likeness. I think the bottom half of the face is not bad but I’ve lost something around the eyes, hair and top of the face.
Of course drawing in class isa very different to drawing for myself. I have to draw flat so my document camera captures the process well for everyone viewing online. I have to work faster than I would normally (though that’s not necessarily a bad thing). And I use a thicker pen so that my lines are more visible for viewers – and I do find that makes a big difference. Perhaps I’ll start using a fountain pen again so I can have more line variability if I’m going to have a thicker line?
Every Thursday at 5pm BST Sketchbook Skool’s Danny Gregory hosts a one hour Draw With Me session on YouTube. Anyone can attend and it’s free. People attend from all around the world and, for about 45 minutes, we draw along with Danny while he chats about what he’s drawing, the nature of drawing, and anything else that comes up. It’s a very sociable occasion, with people commenting and chatting in the online chat, which is also hosted by Sketchbook Skool.
What we draw each week is usually a surprise. This week’s session was on Bastille Day so we drew Louis XVI. Obviously I love it when the sessions feature a portrait because I get to draw another face. I try to finish my drawings in the session because I love the challenge of trying to work much faster than usual, so I drew this portrait in 45-50 minutes (I did add the gold in just a few minutes after the session).
If you like to draw then why not join a session one Thursday? If the time doesn’t suit you then they are recorded so you can watch the recorded sessions at a time that fits with your schedule (but it’s more fun to join live if you can because you can participate in the chat). The entire back catalogue is available on Sketchbook Skool’s YouTube channel here. If you want to see some of the work created during sessions head over to Instagram and search for #SBSDrawWithMe.
I’m struggling to draw in the hot weather in the UK. The heat affects my meds and makes me very tired and I think that this affected my drawing subliminally – Denyce looks so tired in this portrait and she really doesn’t look tired in the inspiration photo. Her hair has also ended up frizzy from the humidity – and it’s not like that in the inspiration image either. I didn’t really notice this when I was drawing but can see it so clearly now.
So my challenge for the next couple of weeks is to see if I can manage to draw portraits without making people look hot, sweaty and tired. I’m also wondering if this something that happens to other people or just me…
I love drawing dogs almost as much as I love drawing humans and this was an especially cute dog to draw. This is Danyelle’s bull terrier, posted on the Museum by Sktchy app., drawn on my iPad Pro using the Procreate app.
We practiced drawing noses in my Drawing Faces class for Sketchbook Skool’s Spark programme this week. I love drawing noses and hate drawing mouths (because I find them so difficult to get right) so drawing Erika’s nose and mouth here was both a joy and a struggle! We focused on finding the roundness in these features to help us draw them well and it was a lot of fun.
I usually play around with the drawings a little after class, adding finishing touches when I have more time. But this week I have builders putting in new windows and I had to pack all my art materials away straight after my class, so I had to finish my drawing entirely in Procreate. So all the finishing touches are added with digital Copic and coloured pencil brushes.
Every time I finish drawing a face from the Museum by Sktchy app I upload the portrait into a 13 square grid in the collage app Pic Stitch. When that grid is full I upload it into a 16 square grid. I have a collection of these grids now recording all my portraits over the years since I joined Sktchy. This is my latest grid, finished this week, which contains 208 portraits completed over the past year.
Thank you so much to all 208 muses, without whom I would have no inspiration, and to everyone at Sktchy who keeps the app running so efficiently. 🙏❤️
I love drawing shadows and I’m loving my TrueGrit Chromagraph brushes, so drawing this portrait of Paniz was a a lot of fun! I’ll probably get bored of these brushes eventually but until I do expect a lot of Procreate portraits.
This is Adane-Maru from the Museum by Sktchy app.
drawing faces 