I retreated to my comfort zone for a couple of hours to draw today’s Sktchy muse Delphine, because I could and I wanted to. This was drawn with Copic markers in a Midori cotton sketchbook.
Delphine
Tag: portrait
Lois
This is a portrait of Lois for Lesson 2 of the Sktchy course Ink Naturally with Dylan Sara. Dylan showed us how to draw a portrait with 2 contrasting home-made inks and a hand made calligraphy pen. He used ink made with turmeric and walnuts.
I didn’t have any turmeric or walnuts so I made ink from paprika (I just added hot water and that’s the yellow ink) and tea – that’s the brown ink. I added a drop of India ink to my brown tea ink to darken it because it wasn’t dark enough. I drew the portrait using a pen I made from a whittled stick a year or so ago. It has a fat rounded nib rather than a more blunt calligraphy nib. I’m pretty happy with this given I was just using what I could find in my house. I’ll be buying some turmeric and walnuts this week and making some ink for further experimentation…
Madusa
This is a very quick and gentle portrait of the lovely Madusa , drawn in my Hannehmühle Nostalgie sketchbook with Polychromos coloured pencils.
Paul
I’m still not feeling great – so much so that I haven’t managed to get out of bed today. So I drew Paul on my iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil and the Procreate app. I love the strength I see in his expression here.
Ivanka
There is so much pain and anger in the world right now, I don’t really know how to respond to it all. My body responds with migraines, one after another. So my head still hurts but I’m still drawing as best I can. This is Ivanka, drawn from Sktchy,
I painted this in a Moleskine sketchbook with Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished it with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
Solaleh
I was up most of last night with a pounding migraine – I can’t lie down when they’re this bad because it feels like my head will explode if I do. Today the left side of my face is numb, I don’t have full vision in my left eye and I’m taking a lot of codeine. So I needed to come up with a quick draw. I’ve got a box of Faber-Castell Pitt artists pens on my desk that I’ve barely used because I don’t really know what to do with them, so I thought I’d have a go at using them the same way I use ballpoint pens for this portrait of Sktchy muse Solaleh. I quite like the result, especially the way it kind of reflects my migraine state of mind, with its washed out and jagged colour.
I drew Solaleh in my Emilio Braga notebook with Faber-Castell Pitt artist pens.
George Floyd
Today Sktchy has asked artists to draw George Floyd, who was killed last week by a police officer in the United States, and whose death has sparked both peaceful protests and riots across that country in the days since. Sktchy are donating $50 for every portrait drawn of him until Friday to Campaign Zero, a campaign to end police violence in America, so if you’re a Sktchy artist reading this please think about posting a portrait of George Floyd on Sktchy before the end of the week.
I’m taking the new Sktchy course Ink Naturally with Dylan Sara which started this week – learning to make ink out of natural products and draw with it. So I drew this portrait with a bamboo calligraphy pen and using coffee as my ink.
Scottish Guy
I don’t know this man’s name – his photo was posted on Sktchy by Christine and she tagged it “Scotttishguy”. What an awesome face to draw though. I’m not sure I did him justice.
I drew this portrait in a Moleskine watercolour sketchbook with Unipin fineliners, painted it with Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished it with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
Frida
I’ve been taking part in the Brooklyn Art Library’s 14 day portrait challenge. Today’s person to draw was Frida Kahlo but I decided that I didn’t want to draw the flower crowned iconic Frida that everyone knows. Instead I decided to draw the younger sterner Frida who wasn’t entirely sure yet who she wanted to be.
I decided to draw this portrait on my iPad Pro because I thought Procreate offered me the best tools for trying to recreate the vintage feel of the photo I was drawing from. I used most of my favourite brushes – the wet acrylic, the stucco, the Blackwing Pencil, and the Studio Pen.
Ali
This is Sktchy muse Ali. I’m generally pretty good at capturing a likeness these days but every so often I’ll have a run of missing it every day for a week or more. I’m having one of those runs right now. I’ve missed Ali’s likeness completely in this portrait. My last several portraits haven’t been so far off, but they haven’t been quite there either.
I don’t worry when I miss the likeness. The process of drawing is more important to me than the outcome. But I do think about what it says about me and what’s happening with my drawing at the time. Often it can mean that I’m not as focused as perhaps I should be, or I’m rushing my portraits because I don’t have as much time to work on them as I would like, or it can be a sign of personal stress.
Sometimes, it’s a sign of progress. It’s what I think of as the “one step forwards, two steps back” progress that comes with creative development, that means it feels like your work is getting much worse just before you make a breakthrough and step up a level. That might sound a little nonsensical but I hope some other artists recognise it. I’ve come to understand that that’s how my work progresses.
Right now I’m quite stressed so I think this loss of likeness is probably down to stress and a lack of focus but there’s a little bit of me that’s hoping I’m about to make an unexpected creative breakthrough. 🙂
I drew Ali in a Midori cotton sketchbook with Copic markers and Prismacolor coloured pencils.
drawing faces 