Tag: portrait

Ryan

This is Ryan from Sktchy painted in my Fabriano Venezia sketchbook with Daniel Smith and Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished with Prismacolor coloured pencils.

Raúl

I do like doing simple ballpoint pen hatching. There’s something so meditative about drawing all those lines going in one direction. This is so simple to do if you feel like having a go – just draw a simple outline of your main shapes and then fill them in building up the colour layer by layer. It’s easiest if you focus on your lightest and darkest areas first – I usually map them first with blue and then add other colours on top.

Angelina

This is Angelina from Sktchy. I didn’t quite capture her likeness, as usual I lost it around it around the mouth somewhere. But it’s not the end result that matters so much as the process and I had a wonderfully focused couple of hours drawing this.

I try to let go of any attachment to the end result as far as I possibly can when I’m drawing and just let myself get lost in the process. At the end of the day the outcome is just a drawing on a piece of paper. If I’m not happy with it I can turn the page and start again. What is really important to me is the time I spend drawing, the sense of calm and relaxation I get from that, and the learning and practice I get from any time spent drawing. Every hour spent drawing is time spent developing skills, even if that drawing turns out being one I hate.

If you’re beginning to draw this is the hardest lesson to learn – I remember people saying it to me a few years ago and I just couldn’t believe I would ever learn it, but I did in the end. Process over outcome. It’s the process of drawing that matters much more than the outcome, at least while you’re not a professional artist or taking exams. Draw, draw, draw, worry less about outcome and enjoy the process.

Yuka

It’s been a while since I’ve used this digital drawing style and I didn’t want to get too out of practice with my method so I used it for today’s portrait of Yuka from Sktchy.

Juli

This was fun! Digital drawing can be very liberating because the ability to work in layers makes it so much easier to correct mistakes and experiment with new different approaches and ideas. And I think that often shows in my digital portraits, like this one of Juli which I finished very quickly and deliberately decided not to spend too much time tidying it up because I didn’t to lose that sense of freshness.

Kimiya

This is Kimiya from Sktchy and a straightforward watercolour and coloured pencil portrait in my Fabriano Venezia sketchbook.

Brady

I forgot to post this yesterday amidst all the tennis and football fever in the UK. Both Wimbledon and the Euros are now over (boohoo) so my work frenzy will no longer be complicated by a sport frenzy (at least until the Olympics begin). Which means I might manage some more drawing. Anyway, this is Brady from Sktchy drawn with Copic markers and Prismacolor coloured pencils.

Eric

I’m still struggling to find time to draw amidst a very hectic work schedule at the moment so any time with my sketchbook feels very precious. But I know the school holidays are coming and I always have a much quieter time once they’ve arrived so I’m looking forward to that. I don’t have kids in school but I work with health services and the summer holidays is always the least busy time of the year as meetings tend to fall away and/or get postponed until September. This also explains why June and July are so busy – everyone is trying to jam all their meetings in and tie up loose ends before the 6 week school holiday hiatus!

So in the midst of the meeting mania I was happy to spend a couple of hours drawing Eric’s awesome face. I didn’t quite capture his great expression completely- as usual it’s the mouth that isn’t quite right. But he was fun to draw and paint!

Holly Golightly

I’ve almost finished my Screen Queens themed sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project 2021 and of course I had to include the queen of all screen queens Miss Holly Golightly. I did dither a little bit and briefly consider including an alternative Audrey Hepburn character. I always knew I was going to include Audrey Hepburn but wasn’t 100% sure which character t draw, but the more I thought about it the more I knew it had to be Holly Golightly because she’s just so iconic. And she was a lot of fun to draw.

Laya

This has been a crazy week and I haven’t had time to draw for almost a week, which I think is the longest I’ve gone without drawing in at least five years. But hooray, it’s Saturday, and I have some breathing space and time to sketch.

This is Laya from Sktchy drawn on my iPad Pro using the Procreate app.