I painted this fawn for this week’s Old School Sktchy weekly art extravaganza (wax) challenge on the theme ” zoological”.
I drew it in a Moleskine watercolour sketchbook with a Unipin light grey fineliner, painted it with Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished it with Prismacolor coloured and a Uniball Signo with gel pen.
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.
This portrait of Vez was a fun draw but the most remarkable thing about it for me is that I’ve somehow rejuvenated Vez, by around 10-20 years! If anything I usually make my subjects look a little older than their actual age and this is certainly the first time I’ve made someone look so much younger! I wish I knew how I’d done it because I suspect this would be guaranteed to keep the commissions flooding in.
I drew Vez on my iPad Pro with a 2nd Generation Apple Pencil using the Procreate app.
Sometimes I see an inspiration photo on Sktchy and it speaks to me, demanding to be drawn or painted, this was one of those photos. Everything about Mellie’s photo screamed “draw me” “paint me”, ” do my portrait”. It’s the turn of the head, the lift of the chin, the look in the eyes. I saw this photo just a few days ago and wanted desperately to paint her. I chose paint over other mediums because I thought it would do the best job of capturing the flush in her skin without making her look too red-faced and I think it was a great choice, though it was hard work getting the balance right.
I drew Mellie in my Moleskine watercolour sketchbook with a light grey Unipin fineliner, painted her with Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
I took a Skillshare class last week on Metallic textures in Procreate with my favourite Skillshare teacher, Liz Kohler-Brown, and I managed to use the technique I learned on that class to draw the gold earrings and necklace in this portrait. I’m very proud of myself because this is quite a stretch from what we were doing in the class! And this is the beautiful Abra, who offered the perfect for experimenting with both this technique and more of Procreate’s great new updates brushes. I used the wet acrylic on her face and then several different drawing brushes on her hair and lips.
I drew Abra on my iPad Pro using a 2nd gen Apple Pencil and the Procreate app.
I’ve been working on a commission this weekend so haven’t had much time for other drawing but did manage to fit in this sketch of T. It was drawn with a Pilot Eno mechanical pencil in a Hannehmühle Nostalgie sketchbook.
This is Jojo. In her inspiration image she’s at the hairdressers but as I was drawing her she began to look more and more like a character in an anime version of Star Wars 😊
I drew Jojo in my Midori Cotton sketchbook with Copic Markers and coloured pencils.
Sometimes drawings just don’t turn out as well as you hope. This portrait of Maria actually looked fine at the halfway stage. I should have stopped there. I started drawing it on a train a week ago. And then it has been completed in bits and pieces over a very frustrating day when I started out with no broadband and had to wait for it be restored, I’ve been working on and off in online meetings and drawing in between. The end result is an overworked portrait where I really haven’t taken the time to stop and think properly about what I’ve been doing. I thought it was OK when I finished it (and it does look better in the sketchbook than in the photo) but now I can see the many things that are wrong with it. Maybe I’ll come back to it and work on it some more another day – or will that just be overworking it more?
I drew Maria’s portrait in my tiny Moleskine sketchbook with Bic and Paperchase multicolour ballpoint pens.
I love how huge Van’s hand looks in this portrait! It’s large in the inspiration image too but I have exaggerated it a little too. I think the extra size makes her look even more pensive.
I drew Van in my Moleskine watercolour sketchbook with a Micron fineliner, then painted her with Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished the portrait with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
The inspiration photo for this portrait of Rocio is so fantastic – it just oozes warmth and happiness, I couldn’t resist drawing it for this week’s Old School Sktchy challenge which has the prompt “light”. I wasn’t able to capture the fantastic glow that the light from the rainbow emits in the photo but I did get some of the warmth
I drew this portrait on the first page of my new Midori Cotton sketchbook using Ca Micron fineliner, Copic markers and Prismacolor coloured pencils.
drawing faces 