portrait sketch

Here's a drawing for a portrait painting I have planned. The ref photo is by babasteve on Flickr. There's a lot going on with light and shadows; I often find it helpful to do a drawing to help me focus on potential sticky areas.

Did this last night while listening to the England cricket team finishing off the Aussies (yay!)


A4 pencil sketch.

Life drawing

Here are a few more from recent weeks:

Not sure how long this pose was for, but I can assure you that the model didn't have a 5 o'clock shadow (such are the perils of using charcoal!)

 This one was a 25-minute pose, pencil.

This was, I think, another 20/25 minute pose. Here, the tutor gave us each a small piece of card, about an inch and a half square, along with a piece of charcoal. We had to load the edge of the card with charcoal, and use this as a drawing implement.  I really like the result.

Iskamontero in the garden

Here's one I've been working on for a challenge on Redbubble.

Watercolour, 10" by 12" crop from an original size of quarter sheet, on Fabriano Artistico HP paper, which is a rather smooth surface. Was going for a real sunny feel with this one.

The reference photo was supplied by Iskamontero herself, for a portrait challenge on Redbubble (in the Bubbler Portraits group).

The days darken round me

Back to the watercolours for this portrait. I loved painting the skin tones of this chap - lots of very thin washes, building up some rich tones. The shadows were interesting too - very definite cast shadows along with softer 'form' shadows indicating how the planes of the face turn. I wasn't sure about the title - but he looks like he's contemplating something with a certain amount of worry...

Watercolour, quarter sheet (15" by 11"). Reference photo by chilombiano on morguefile.

Some more life drawing

Here are a few more from the last few weeks of the life drawing class.

 25 min. Really like this pose, the model looks well comfy!

 ?? not sure how long this pose was, but no longer than 30 minutes.

30 minutes

 30 minutes.


The 2-hour class just flies by it seems! I'm not sure I'm getting any better but I feel more confident about my drawing... I seem to do better at the longer poses (20-30 minutes); I'm not keen on anything I've drawn in the short poses.

Washed my hair

Many times I've looked in the mirror after I've washed my hair and thought, 'actually, that'd be fun to paint'. So I finally got round to snapping a picture of me with my hair wrapped up in a towel and got the paints out...

Acrylic on Galeria paper, 10" by 14".

This one has turned out pretty much as I had it in my head, so I'm pleased about that. It's fairly high key (ie there's not a huge amount of contrast - no really dark darks), but I reckon that adds to the mood of the piece (the bathroom generally feels and looks like a sauna by the time I've finished!), and it's what I was aiming for :-)

Life drawing

Here's the pick of my efforts from last night:

35-minute pose, charcoal and white pastel pencil on a mid-tone paper (A2 in size). The idea was to really get looking at the shadows and highlights, using the colour of the paper as the mid-tone for the drawing. This is a brilliant exercise to do, and is just the same as I've done for some of my portraits. Only this is from life and in 35 minutes, rather than from a photo and taking hours ;-)

I'm enjoying this class so much - the 2 hours just flies by. In fact, I'm now kicking myself for not having signed up last year...