This is Danny. I didn’t really know what I was doing or where I was going with this Procreate portrait, I just kept drawing and it got darker and dirtier and messier. I had his likeness, lost it totally, got it back a little, lost it again, and ended up with him looking liked he’d walked out of a coal mine rather than someone half in shadow.
Lol! That’s what this drawing thing is like some days. I still like elements of the portrait and I’m sharing it so you know that some days drawing comes easily and others it’s a real battle. Today I really enjoyed doing this but the outcome is a lot messier than I would have wished for!
Thanks to Sktchy muse Milena for providing the inspiration for today’s portrait. It was drawn in my Moleskine watercolour sketchbook with a Unipin fineliner, painted with Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
To mask or not to mask is becoming more of a conversation every day in the UK, but they are still very difficult to get hold of. But you can make your own now, so long as you don’t need them to be medical quality – YouTube, Facebook and Instagram are bursting with instructional videos for sewing your own and even hacks for making stitch-free versions using scarves and elastic bands. I ordered a couple of washable ones from Amazon a month ago and they finally arrived this week so I have some if I need to go to the shops or chemists. But official policy at the moment is that they don’t need to be worn in public.
This is Sktchy muse Mussu. I drew her in a Midori Cotton sketchbook with Copic markers and Prismacolor coloured pencils.
This is Richard, today’s Sktchy face. I’ve lost his likeness a little and made him look more melancholy than he does in the Sktchy inspiration photo, but I like the painting a lot nevertheless.
I drew the portrait in a Moleskine watercolour sketchbook with a Unipin fineliner, painted it with my everyday Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished it off with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
This is Sktchy muse Calysta. While I was drawing her I was thinking of the things I miss.
I miss small talk in the margins of meetings.
I miss passing the time with neighbours in the street.
I miss the sound of children heading to and from school through my open window and the distant hubbub of the school playground at playtime.
I miss pub lunches and chip shop suppers.
I miss days at the farm.
I miss not feeling scared, anxious and sad all the time.
I miss feeling in control of my mental health, my agoraphobia and claustrophobia.
I miss being able to just leave the house and go somewhere, anywhere, when I want to, just to remind myself that I am able to do that these days. Will I be able to do that by the time the lockdown is over or will I be agoraphobic again?
I drew Calysta on my iPad Pro using the Procreate app.
How many of you, like me, feel like you’re disappearing from the world in this lockdown? We have no material impact on it any more. The only presence I have in the world is the one I have here, in cyberspace, through my words and through my portraits. And I feel so inarticulate when I write, at least when I draw I feel as though I’m expressing a little of what I’m feeling.
At the moment I feel as though I’m gradually vanishing, so that if, in a few days time, I disappeared completely, no one would notice. This portrait of Ariana expresses that feeling very well indeed, that the outer edges of me are already gone, melted away into nothingness.
I drew this portrait on my iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil using the Procreate app.
This is Sktchy muse Sydney drawn in a HannehmĂĽhle Nostalgie sketchbook. I sketched her with a blue Pilot ENO mechanical pencil and then hatched over that sketch with a purple Pilot ENO mechanical pencil.
I’m not feeling well today. I’ve got a killer migraine and a horrible flare up of both CRPS and fibromyalgia symptoms,so this was really all I could manage to draw. Hoping I’ll have more energy tomorrow.
Today’s Sktchy portrait is of Tara. I chose this inspiration photo because it reflects how I look on Zoom midway through most afternoons these days – though considerably older and less attractive, it’s the expression and posture I’m referring to really. I’ve always done some of my work remotely via Zoom but I’m finding spending the day going from one Zoom meeting to another with little time to breathe in between exhausting.
Spending so much time in front of a screen is also making my chronic migraines even more frequent than usual. So, despite all the advice not to touch our faces, I’m afraid I’m head-in-hand or head-clutching even more often than usual.
Having said all that, I know I’m lucky to still have work. In fact, I’ve got more work now than I had before the lockdown and I don’t want to complain about that, not least because I don’t know how long it will last. As anyone reading this who’s also self-employed will know, the curse of self-employment is that you have to take the work when it’s there because you never know what the future might hold, and that’s especially true in these Coronavirus days. I’m just hoping that my eyes, body and brain will adjust and the migraines will ease over the next few weeks.
I drew this portrait in a Moleskine watercolour sketchbook, painted it with Zecchi watercolours and finished it with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
This is Sktchy muse Alicja wearing a very intimidating mask. I’ve had masks very much on my mind the past few days. I read a newspaper article a few days ago which said that wearing masks seems to be far more effective than societal distancing at preventing the spread of COVID-19. Those countries where mask wearing in public has been made mandatory have apparently seen a hugely reduced rate of infection.
It’s not that it protects you from being infected, it’s more that it helps to stop you from infecting others by reducing the spread of the virus in your saliva and sneezes. So this is why you should cover your face and mouth if you’re going outside, with a bandanna or scarf if you don’t have a mask. In the UK it’s nigh on impossible to get hold of a mask anyway…
I drew this portrait in a Midori Cotton sketchbook with Copic markers and Prismacolor coloured pencils.
drawing faces 