This is Jan from the Museum by Sktchy app. I’m taking a much slower approach to my drawing and watercolour painting when I’m not actually teaching in a class at the moment (when I have to work fast because we only have about because we about 40 minutes of class time to work on a drawing). I’m think I’m getting better results from working slower.
In my last post I shared a portrait that I started during a workshop last weekend with watercolour artist Mario Robinson. Yesterday I began this portrait of Vic from Museum by Sktchy with the very deliberate intention of using my usual watercolour and coloured pencil approach BUT incorporating what I had learned from Mario’s workshop last weekend.
So instead of rushing the watercolour stage as I usually do I slowed right down. I started yesterday and finished today, spending at least twice as long as I usually do on it (2 hours +). I also used water in a second brush to soften the edges and preserve the highlights. And I tried to replicate some of Mario’s very swift brush strokes, designed to keep the brush on the paper for a short a time as possible.
I also didn’t do a number of things that I would usually do. I didn’t use any masking fluid – and I really like the end result just using water to preserve highlights, even if it takes longer. I didn’t use my usual darker fineliner – I’m not so sure about this decision. I feel like that’s part of my style and the portrait does look quite right without it. And because I did go in to finish off with my coloured pencil hatching I think that’s looks a little off (too strong ) without the fineliner outline to balance it. But I think my watercolour work is definitely better than it was a week ago, especially in the hair which is where I always lack the most confidence.
So I think going forward I will certainly be taking a lot of what I learned and incorporating it into my own method and adapting it to make it workable within the shorter timescales that I generally work with.
Right back in my comfort zone with this drawing of Cori from Museum by Sktchy made using Copic markers and coloured pencils.
I’ve been slowly working my way through the back catalogue of Danny Gregory’s weekly Sketchbook Skool Draw With Me sessions on YouTube. I try to attend the live sessions of this on Thursday if I can but they sometimes clash with work so I’ve missed a lot and now I’m revisiting those missed sessions one by one.
Today I took the session on Drawing Distortion which invited everyone to draw a distorted version of Danny or themselves. I hate drawing selfies but love drawing distortion and have no issue with drawing a distorted version of myself! So I snapped a quick selfie and used a photo app on my iPhone to distort it. And then I went straight in with a fineliner drawing, then adding colour with some watercolour pencils I found in a drawer.
I love the end result. I think it’s instantly recognisable as me, while being very distorted 😂
If you want to check out a Draw with Me session you can find them on YouTube here.
We’re working on drawing hands in my Drawing Faces class for Sketchbook Skool’s Spark programme at the moment. I love drawing portraits that include hands and once you feel confident drawing hands you can draw so many more poses – heads in hands, people drinking or on their phone, someone scratching their head, etc – so I think it’s really important to learn to draw them even if you only want to draw faces. So we started with a hand pose and we’ll move on to portraits including hands in later classes.
I had a lot of fun with this portrait of Mahoo from Museum by Sktchy winking. I drew him with my Bic 4-colour ballpoint pens in a Life Noble Note Plain notebook.
A little bit of ballpoint pen action for this drawing of Letitia from Museum by Sktchy.
I drew this portrait of Devon while teaching Spark classes for Sketchbook Skool. It ended up very wonky but that’s OK – it was a valuable lesson in how to keep going even when you really aren’t happy with your line drawing. And the final portrait turned out fine.
This is Irina from Museum by Sktchy drawn on an iPad Pro using the Procreate app.
Drawn with ballpoint pens in a Moleskine sketchbook.
drawing faces 