Today’s portrait of Christiane is the last portrait in my A4 Moleskine sketchbook. For some reason the paper, which has been fine throughout the book, reacted weirdly to my markers on this page, pilling and tearing around the nose and being generally difficult. I’m so glad this only happened on that back page!
I’ve shared a flip through of the whole book on my YouTube channel – you can watch it here.
I love drawing half faces. It takes away all the stress of drawing the second eye. Lots of other artists on Sktchy have talked at one time or another of the fear of drawing the second eye. In my case I tend to draw it slightly lower and bigger than the first eye. It doesn’t matter what I do to try to account for this (guidelines, careful measuring, etc), I still have a tendency to get it wrong and I almost always have to draw it two or three times before I’m just OK with how it looks. So drawing a half face (or a profile) every now gives me a day off from that particular worry. And I couldn’t resist Helena’s beautiful strawberry blonde hair!
I drew Helena’s portrait in my A4 Moleskine sketchbook with a Micron fineliner and Copic markers.
This is Sktchy muse Avonlea. I love the way the light casts a shadow down the left side of her face and across her eyes in the inspiration photo for this portrait, and capturing that without darkening her eyes too much was my main focus when drawing. I’m so happy with the finished portrait; I really feel like it’s the best I could have done right now and that’s all I can ask of myself.
I drew Avonlea in my A4 Moleskine sketchbook with a Micron fineliner, Copic markers and Prismacolor coloured pencils.
This is Sktchy muse Scott and this is the kind of Sktchy inspiration photo that is irresistible for me. I love these kind of ‘altered perspective through glasses’ photos and that pipe is fantastic. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to draw the pipe initially but I figured if I messed it up I could crop it out and just include the pipe stem in my portrait (these kinds of cheats are essential to my drawing practice 😂) but in the end I was happy enough with how it turned out. It’s a little large but I wasn’t going to worry too much about that.
I drew Scott in my A4 Moleskine sketchbook with Copic markers and a white gel pen.
This is Bec, one of my oldest online drawing buddies. We’ve never met in person because I live in the UK and Bec lives in Australia, but we see each other most days on Instagram, Facebook and/or Sktchy and often chat about drawing, art communities and family. I’ve aged Bec a little in this portrait- she’s definitely younger than she looks here! But I know she’ll forgive me because she knows this is the kind of thing that sometimes happens when you’re drawing.
I drew Bec’s portrait in my A4 Moleskine sketchbook with Copic markers, coloured pencils and metallic gel pens.
This is Ahmet, drawn in my A4 Moleskine sketchbook with Copic markers and coloured pencils.
Finally, after what feels like weeks of struggle, a portrait I’m happy with. I haven’t quite captured Ania’s likeness here, which reminds me once again that it isn’t a perfect likeness that I’m striving for, but I’ve definitely caught a sense of her gracefulness and her porcelain-like beauty. I made a mess of a number of my lines , especially under her eyes and in her hair, but that doesn’t matter. Overall I’m happy with what I achieved. The hair frames the face well and draw attention into those beautiful eyes and that lovely freckled skin. That’s what I wanted from the portrait.
I drew Ania in my Moleskine sketchbook with Micron fineliners, Copic markers and Prismacolor coloured pencils.
Still expressing my own emotions through my portraits of others, this time in my portrait of Rocio.
I drew Rocio with Copic markers and coloured pencils in my Moleskine sketchbook.
I drew Susana in my large A4 Moleskine sketchbook with Copic markers and finished it with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
Jenell is the queen of Sktchy muses. She is probably the one female muse who every Sktchy artist has to draw as part of their rite of passage into the Sktchy community. I’ve drawn her once before, in my first year on Sktchy but I don’t think I’ve drawn her since then. So it was a joy to sit down and draw those very familiar eyes and cheekbones today! This was fun.
I drew Jenell in my Moleskine sketchbook with a Copic multiliner and Copic markers.
drawing faces 