This is one of those portraits where I lost the likeness completely but I nevertheless had fun with the process. I’ve drawn Wendy from Museum by Sktchy several times before too, and have never struggled to capture her likeness before – maybe it was the slightly upward looking angle that confounded me?
Every week Sketchbook Skool founder Danny Gregory House Draw With Me session on YouTube. Anyone can attend and draw along with Danny. Each session has a different theme and after the session people post their drawings on social media (although this isn’t obligatory).
During this week’s s Draw With Me session we drew a 19-year-old Vincent van Gogh. I did a simple sketch in ballpoint pen. But many other people did wonderfully colourful drawings in true Van Gogh style and when I saw them posted online I decided I had to have a go. So I uploaded my sketch to my iPad and started playing around in Procreate with a TrueGrit TextureTown brush and the Liquefy function. This is what I ended up with. I love it.
You can see my process on YouTube here. If you’d like to watch a previous or attend a future Draw With Me session ( they’re absolutely free and open to anyone worldwide) you’ll find them here – make sure you subscribe if you want to receive a reminder of future sessions.
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.
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 😂
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?
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.
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. 🙏❤️
This is Adane-Maru from the Museum by Sktchy app.
I drew most of this portrait of Evgenia in my class for this week’s Sketchbook Skool Spark programme. I didn’t have time to work on the hair during the class so I did that later and just focused on the face initially. I drew the portrait in my sketchbook and cleaned it up digitally on my iPad using the Procreate app.
I’ve recently started teaching a portrait class for Sketchbook Skool’s Spark subscription programme. Since I use Copic markers a lot there’s been some demand for more instruction on their use so this weekend I’m going to be teaching a pop-up class on alcohol markers. Since not everyone uses Copics I wanted to include a range of alcohol markers, so I dug out some of my other ones for the class and thought I would reacquaint myself with them.
So today I drew Tlali from Sktchy with Winsor & Newton Promarkers (& a few Copics since my W&N collection is very limited). I used the W&N skin tones 2 collection for this portrait in a Moleskine sketchbook.
You can find out more about Sketchbook Skool and Spark here.
drawing faces 