I’m still working away at my ballpoint pen practice but those portraits take many hours, so I took some time out today to return to my Copic comfort zone and draw one of my favourite Sktchy muses, Giada.
I drew this in my A4 Moleskine with Copic markers and Prismacolor coloured pencils.
I drew Scout in black and white a few days ago for Inktober. I knew when I drew her that I would add colour at some point to that portrait. So here is that same portrait but with colour added in Procreate. She looks older than she should, which is one of the reasons I don’t often draw children – yes, I’m one of those artists who always manages to age children when I draw or paint them.
I added colour on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil in the Procreate app using Lisa Bardot’s gouache brushes and the Procreate luminance brushes.
I love watching artists draw and watching Robin Hilthouse draw in his Sktchy Portraits in Pen course is such a pleasure. I’m also learning so much. He takes around 8 to 10 hours for a full face portrait; I haven’t got either the patience or the skill yet for an 8 hour drawing but this unfinished portrait of Sktchy muse Klara took around 2-3 hours and by the end I was definitely making lighter better strokes than at the start. So I definitely made progress over the time it took me to draw it!
I drew this in a Moleskine sketchbook with a variety of Bic and Staedtler ballpoint pens.
I’m taking a Sktchy Art School course offered by Robin Hilthouse on drawing with ballpoint pens and decided my attempt to draw an eye with ballpens could be my daily Sktchy, my practice for the course and today’s Inktober drawing for the prompt “frail”. I had surgery on my right eye in my very early 30s and I have some more problems with my eyes now which are bothersome more than worrying, but perhaps I know more than the average person how frail and precious our eyes are. I think I have some way to go before I can draw an eye as beautifully as Robin but I enjoyed the challenge.
I drew this in a Moleskine sketchbook with a variety of Bic and Staedtler ballpoint pens.
I don’t often draw children but the photo of Scout which inspired this portrait is so perfect for today’s Inktober theme “enchanted”. I drew this with the technical pen brush in Procreate, which I don’t think I’ve ever used before. I know for sure I’m going to come back and add colour when I have the time
This is another commission from Joni, my second in two days. It’s exciting to get commissions but definitely a little anxiety-inducing too because I want clients to like what I produce for them. But I know I need to have a thick skin if I’m to make work to order. So I’m telling myself the most important thing is to do what I do – if people are commissioning me it’s because they like my work.
I painted this in a Laloran sketchbook with Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished it with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
This is a commission that I received through Sktchy. Commissions are always a double-edged sword for me; there’s the thrill that someone wants to pay me to paint a portrait for them, but then there’s the pressure of having to live up to their expectations, to produce something “good”, worth what they are paying.
The way it works on Sktchy is that the artist receives a request to draw a particular photo, which you can then accept or decline. When I saw this photo my first instinct was to decline because the thought of painting a curly haired dog filled me with fear. But, of course, I didn’t, because I love a good challenge – and I’m so glad I didn’t. This dog is a beauty and painting it was such a pleasure. I had to work hard to figure out how to paint that curly hair but I worked it out and I’m so happy with the finished portrait.
I painted Joni’s dog in a Laloran sketchbook with Zecchi watercolours and finished it with Prismacolor coloured pencils.
I know it’s inktober but I’m still trying to keep up with my routine of switching between Copics, watercolour, coloured pencils and the iPad for my portraits. So today I used coloured pencils to draw James in my HannehmĂĽhle Nostalgie sketchbook.
Coco’s portrait is my entry for this week’s Old School Sktchy wax challenge on the theme “literature”, referencing the novel ” Memoirs of a Geisha” by Arthur Golden. It was a really difficult draw because the heavy face makeup means there are so few skintones to work with – and that’s where I focus most of my energy. So I had to concentrate more on the hair decoration, the clothing and the parasol, which aren’t really my strengths. So it was a good challenge for me.
I drew this in a Moleskine sketchbook with Copic markers and coloured pencils.
For people who draw and share their work online October is arguably the most important month of the year. It’s the month of Inktober. Started I don’t know how many years ago by superduper pen and ink artist Jake Parker, it’s the biggest monthly drawing challenge of them all. The challenge is to make a drawing in pen and ink and share it online with the #inktober hashtag every day of the month. Jake posts a set of daily prompts every year at the beginning of September, but you don’t have to follow them, and Inktober is now so huge that there are many, many alternative prompt lists and drawing challenges if Jake’s doesn’t appeal (my favourite alternative is Mab’s Drawlloween Club which you can find on Instagram – follow @mabgraves for that).
I have completed Inktober a couple of times but last year I took a year off. But I felt like I was missing out. So this year I’ve decided to take a relaxed approach and do some days but maybe not everyday. And instead of drawing in my sketchbook I’m going to use it to explore all the digital ink brushes I’ve got but have never used. So this is a portrait of Thiago and is today’s suggested photo for the Sktchy Inktober group and today’s prompt “mindless”. I used the dry ink brush that comes with Procreate to draw it.
If you want to do Inktober or simply find out more about it you can you can visit the Inktober website at https://inktober.com. If you want to see inktober art just search for #inktober on Instagram, Tumblr or Pinterest. I’ll only be posting my faces here; if you want to see the rest of my Inktober art head over to my Instagram account @helenlp.
drawing faces 