Sometimes I bite off more than I can chew, especially when it comes to what I can do in 45 minutes in class. That was certainly the case with this portrait of Sasha from Sktchy. I really didn’t have enough time to blend the greys in the shadow thoroughly. But I’m surprised at what I did manage in under an hour.
This is Marcus from the Museum by Sktchy app drawn with Bic 4 colour ballpoint pens.
We were drawing distorted selfies in today’s Drawing Faces class. I find that drawing distortion can be freeing because it helps us to draw without worrying so much about likeness, accuracy or flattery, especially when it comes to selfies. This is me reflected in the surface of a metal ball, which creates the curvature.
We drew Wendy, one of my favourite Sktchy muses, with ballpoint pens in my Spark Drawing Faces class yesterday .
It was fun to draw Phil’s great expression and talk about the difficulties of drawing teeth (and leaky Copic markers) in yesterday’s Drawing Faces class.
This is Marty whose photo was posted on the Museum by Sktchy app by Jacob. We’ve been drawing him over the past couple of weeks in my Sketchbook Skool Spark Drawing Faces class using Copic markers and coloured pencils.
I started drawing portraits with ballpoint pens in 2020 and I’ve drawn one every few weeks since then. Today I finished my first sketchbook of these drawings almost exactly three years after I started it with this portrait of Jodi from the Museum by Sktchy app. It’s a wonderful sketchbook because I can see how much progress I’ve made over these three years I developing both my skills and my style.
If you’d like to see a flip through of my completed sketchbook you can view it on YouTube here.
The inspiration photo for this portrait of Natascia just cried out for an iPad drawing exercise using the symmetry tool so, of course, I decided to draw it the hard way, in my sketchbook using Copic markers and pencils.
It was a fun drawing exercise, where I was checking both on the image and my drawing to try to get some sense of symmetry but trying not to be overexercised by it. I wanted the drawing to work on its own, rather than worrying too much about it being perfectly symmetrical. And it certainly isn’t the latter but I think it works nicely as a drawing so I’m happy with it.
This is Mussu from the Museum by Sktchy app. I drew her in a Sketchbook Skool Spark Drawing Faces class. The drawing didn’t work out – I ended up with large “watermarks” from the alcohol markers on her forehead and cheeks so I decided to use the drawing in a subsequent class on touching up drawings on the iPad.
So this is the portrait after those watermarks have been touched up a little on the iPad. I’ve also cleaned up other parts of the portrait digitally and added some highlights with a digital pencil brush. Loving how I was able to turn a disaster into a used learning opportunity 😊
I bought some new 4 colour ballpoint pens by Life & Pieces; one is the usual blue/red/black/green but the other two have different colours to my usual Bics. I used all three for this portrait of Jeff from the Museum by Ktchy app.
They’re a bit blobby as you can probably tell – far more blobs of ink on this drawing than the Bics ever give me. They’re also more like gel pens, it’s not easy to work light strokes with them. But it was still fun to switch it up & use something different and I love the overall colour effect I got from them.
drawing faces 