
This Laure from Sktchy drawn on my iPad Pro using the Procreate app.

This Laure from Sktchy drawn on my iPad Pro using the Procreate app.

This is Goldipants from Sktchy and she has such a fabulous face to draw. Sometimes I make the wrong choice of medium for a portrait but this time I think I made the perfect choice – I love how this portrait turned out with ballpoint pens. I don’t think I could have done a better job with any other medium.

Straightforward watercolours and coloured pencils for this portrait of Jon from Sktchy today.

I’m getting close to finishing my little sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project now. Today’s screen queen portrait is of SeoBi (played by the amazing Bae Doo-na) from the Korean zombie series Kingdom. Of course I’m including her because she’s awesome but also in the hope that those of you who aren’t familiar with Korean film and TV will go check it out. My daughter got me totally hooked on it and if it’s got Bae Doo-na in it it’s probably worth watching (she appeared Korean director and Oscar winner Bong Joon-Ho’s debut film The Host).

I’ve spent most of the last 2 weeks on a hospital course which is the second stage (after assessment) of a clinical pathway for getting a spinal cord stimulator for neuropathic pain. It’s been a punishing 2 weeks and I’m physically and emotionally drained, so sitting down to draw Dylan from Sktchy this morning was the perfect way to decompress.
This was my first drawing in a new larger Midori Cotton sketchbook. I’ve never used the A4 size before (Iusually work in the smaller A5 size) but it felt good to have so much more space to work with.

This is Nazli from Sktchy. I was playing with texture in Procreate for this portrait, using Lisa Bardot’s fabulous Pencil Box brushes.
I’ve just realised that I completed my Copic marker sketchbook a few days ago – I didn’t notice that I was on the last page when I was drawing in it. So I’ve filmed a flip through of it and posted it on my YouTube channel.
I’m really happy with the progress I’ve made looking through it since I began it in January 2020. If you’d like to take a look at it you can view it here.

Ballpoint pen sketching is by far the most meditative for me – I think it’s the repetitive hatching in one direction that makes it feel so relaxing. And I have another big week on my hospital neuromodulation course this week so I needed a calming day today so I decided to use ballpoint pens for this portrait of Juan from Sktchy.

I’m in the middle of a 2-week hospital course prior to hopefully getting a spinal cord stimulator to help with my chronic neuropathic pain, so I’ve had no time at all to draw this week. So it’s been nice to get some time with my sketchbook today. This is Amber from Sktchy and I used both watercolours and coloured pencils for this portrait in my Fabriano Venezia sketchbook.

This is the lovely Julieta from Sktchy. I used to work only in Copic markers but I think it’s fair to say that I couldn’t imagine working only with markers these days. I always work over them with coloured pencils to add more subtlety and sheen to the skintones and highlights in the hair. They are also great for working over smalll errors in my linework!