Playing with line over my watercolour in this portrait of Sktchy muse Wael and struggling to get my drawings finished in time this week as I find myself obsessing over British politics. But I tore myself away from Twitter and drew. I worked this in a Laloran sketchbook with Zecchi watercolours and Prismacolor coloured pencils.
Worked really hard at not overworking this one after a whole series of overworked watercolours. Very happy that I managed to keep the colour in this portrait of Sktchy muse Lana simple.
I worked this in a HannehmĂĽhle Nostalgie sketchbook with Zecchi watercolours and Polychromos coloured pencils.
This is my very beautiful friend Georgina, aka George. I first met George 3+ years ago when I was just beginning to draw faces. She has seen my portraiture develop on Instagram and a few weeks ago she messaged to ask if she could be one of my daily faces. I jumped at the chance of having a live model and we had a lovely time chatting while I sketched yesterday. I thought the portrait was a bit of a disaster when I started to add colour to it this morning but suddenly, after about an hour, George appeared on the page in front of me.
Drawing someone you know is always a little more anxiety-inducing than drawing a Sktchy face because capturing a likeness feels so much more important – so once I could see a likeness I was happy. I don’t need to have a perfect likeness but I do want to capture the essence of a person and I feel like I’ve done that here. There is something very “George” about this portrait.
I drew this on Bristol paper with an HB pencil, Copic multiliners and Copic markers and finished it with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
I made such a mess overworking my watercolour in this portrait of Sktchy muse Isabelle – it’s slightly improved by working over it with coloured pencils. It’s also my contribution to this week’s Old School Sktchy WAX challenge on the theme “Fall”.
This portrait of Sktchy muse Lilo was a real challenge. I finished it in coloured pencil and then decided I wasn’t at all happy with it, especially with the angle of the head. So I imported it into Procreate, chopped off the head, seated it at a better angle, works on the whole portrait some more in Procreate and I’m much happier with how it now looks. This is one of the many benefits of using both a sketchbook and an iPad for drawing – it’s possible to meld the two drawing methods together for a better result.
I have an ongoing problem with placement of portraits on the page. Giada’s portrait today is a case in point. I always start drawing with the eyes. I thought I had placed the eye far enough across the page to fit in the whole head but by the time I got to drawing the hair (pretty much the end of the portrait) it was clear I was wrong. And I’m much too lazy to start again at that point.
It also left me with the problem of what to do with all the space on the left hand side of the page. I did think initially of making a pattern out of the letters painted on Giada’s cheek, but I don’t know what they say and I didn’t want to be rude or disrespectful by writing them incorrectly or changing their meaning by writing them into a pattern. So I dug out my huge collection of washi tape and Japanese stickers and found a sticker that matched the mood of the portrait and used that to fill the space.
I painted this in a Laloran sketchbook with Zecchi watercolours and finished it with coloured pencils.
I used Zecchi watercolours with some coloured pencils over the top for my portrait of Sktchy muse Tara.
Another patterned portrait, this time with watercolour and coloured pencils. In Klara’s Sktchy photo she was posing in front of some fabulous rhododendron bushes so I took my inspiration for the floral background pattern from those flowers.
I drew this portrait in a Laloran sketchbook with a Copic multiliner, painted it with Zecchi watercolours and finished it with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
I find it hard now to believe I used to be scared of watercolour. These days it’s almost as much a comfort zone for me as Copic markers and yet I can look back even in the last sketchbook I used and find plenty of examples of horrible overworking. But right now I feel like I’m in a good place where I understand where to stop so that I don’t overwork – and I think perhaps that’s because I took Sketchbook Skool’s Coloured Pencil course and now feel much happier finishing paintings with coloured pencils instead of adding those extra layers of watercolour.
I drew this in a Laloran sketchbook with a Copic multiliner, painted it with Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished it with coloured pencils.
This week’s Old School Sktchy WAX challenge theme is “fish”. Never one to take the conventional approach, I ignored Sktchy’s many photos of people with fish and instead chose to draw those beautiful image of a puffin with a mouthful of fish, posted by Africa Shepherd. I’ve never drawn a puffin before so I loved learning about the shape and colours of a puffin’s beak and eye as I drew it. Everything’s interesting when you draw it (I stole that line from Sketchbook Skool).
I drew my puffin in an A4 Moleskine sketchbook with Copic markers, a white Posca pen, Crayola Shimmers metallic coloured pencils and Prismacolor coloured pencils.
drawing faces 