Tag: hatching

Fary

I love how portraits go through an ugly phase before resolving themselves. There’s always a point when I’m drawing when I wonder if the portrait is going to be a complete disaster or if it is going to work out OK and I have no idea what the answer will be. All I can do is keep working and hope that I will find a way to make it work. Ninety per cent of the time I do, but to be honest it doesn’t really matter. Obviously it’s great to have a portrait I like at the end of the process, but it’s the process that matters, working on my drawing to try to get past the ugly stage to make it less ugly, to resolve it and make something that feels at least partly complete.

This portrait of Fary was especially difficult and was very ugly about half way through. I left it and came back to it a couple of days later, worked on it for another hour and resolved it. It doesn’t have much of a likeness but it’s not ugly any more and I’m very happy with it.

Bear

This was drawn on my iPad Pro using the Procreate app from a photo posted on the Museum by Sktchy app by Jezzi Bear.

Athenas

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 😂

Anatolii

A quick draw of Anatolii in blue biro today – too hot for anything more!

Rosi

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?

Denyce

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…

Bully

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.

Erika

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.

208 faces

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. 🙏❤️

Angie

This is Angie from the Museum by Sktchy app. I’m absolutely in love with the True Grit Chromagraph brushes I bought recently – True Grit brushes aren’t the cheapest Procreate brushes on the market but they’re worth every penny. They’re the best quality of any I’ve tried and I get excited every time they bring out a new set!

If you’re interested in having a look at their brushes you can check them out here – and this post isn’t sponsored by them in any way, I just love their brushes.