Portrait Sketch of Lara

I decided to get some portrait drawing done this afternoon and not having done any sketching or drawing for ages, I expected to do badly.  This one didn't turn out all that bad, but again, the lack of professional lighting and a small camera doesn't show the drawing up very well.  I wanted to shade the background in pencil but it looked like a long haul, so I decided to compromise with a few quick brushes of black gouache and it certainly added a bit of dynamism, even though it slightly overshadows the drawing.

Graphite and Gouache on Cartridge Paper
10.5" x 8.5" 

 

Graphite on Cartridge Paper

10.5" x 8.5"



#annecmcampbell

Sunday Sketches

I've often wondered how those brilliant (mostly American) illustrators were able to convey form and expression on a face with just cross-hatching so I tried it here. It does obviously convey more detail than charcoal ever could with a similar technique, but lots more practice is needed. Again, the photographs just don't show these small works properly. Maybe I should get a digital camera that can take good black and white shots. The paper is a creamy white in both sketches, but I just couldn't adjust them to look like the originals.  Not a problem really.

Portrait Sketch Pencil on Cartridge Paper - 9.5" x 7.5" (Approx.) 

Portrait Sketch Pencil on Cartridge Paper - 7" x 7.5" (Approx.)

Charcoal Portrait - Melancholy Series

I haven't posted any work for ages and the reasons are too boring to write about but I have been mulling over and experimenting with the seductive medium of charcoal recently. Unfortunately the paper I am using is not fine enough to hold the fine cross-hatching but I am not running out to the art materials store like I usually do when something isn't quite right. The photography seems to have picked up some blotchy bits which are not apparent in the original even though I didn't use any flash photography.

"Portait - Melancholy Series"

Charcoal on Cartridge Paper - 16.5" x 13" (Approx.)

The photograph below shows how I ended my day. I still feel creaky after not having drawn for nearly a year, but it's good to be back doing something creative.

Positional Vaticano

Strange title, but this is a first sketch of a painting I hope to do of a scene in the Vatican. A few more drawings with the figures in the correct positions and more attention to the values need to be done before I even start to paint this.  I just wish I knew how to photograph drawings.  I think I'll practice some gesture drawings tonight and if they are passable, I'll post them on the Drawing Vault. 

"Vatican Procession"
Pencil on Cartridge Paper

Gesture Drawings 1.

Another first for the Drawing Vault - gesture drawings - and very quick ones at that. I found this super website that displays photographs of models specifically for artists to draw or paint from and as I haven't painted in front of a live model for years, this was a super find. I decided to start doing very quick drawings from this website tonight and to my dismay I find I am completely out of practice. I could draw better at school. I guess I shouldn't put any old drawing on this blog, but right now I'm not bothered as I want to see how my skills progress if I manage to draw each night, time permitting. These were done with pencil - charcoal is too messy for this late hour - and with a bit of luck my photography of drawings and sketches should improve over time as well.

"Three on the page"

"Head in Hand" - Close Up

"Foggy"

City Squared

Another quick sketch for The Drawing Vault - this time a cityscape - St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London. The reason I took this on was to see how small I could work with charcoal. It appears that I can only do so with a very expensive brand which is not what I'm using here. I want to paint some cityscapes but only after I've completed a lot of sketches of favourite vistas. I need to re-familiarise myself with this genre. My objective was just to capture the details, the broad value strokes and a 'suggestion' of the cathedral as landmark. I'm going to tackle this scene again when I buy some professional charcoal in the next few weeks. I was really surprised that I could pull off a recognisable cityscape in such a short time span. I guess when I attempt to render the cathedral's architecture in finer detail, it will take a lot longer.

"St Paul's Cathedral"

 8" x 8.5" (Approx) Charcoal on Cartridge Paper

Back to the drawing board

I found this drawing half done in a folder tonight and decided to 'finish' it. It's based on a photograph which really isn't the best source material from which to create a portrait, but it was all I had and I just felt like letting rip for a while. I now know how much work needs to be done to get back to where I was some years ago before I started The Drawing Vault blog. It does look better in real life, I promise. I find photographing pencil and even the more matte charcoal very difficult. There's a trick somewhere to this genre of photography.

"Quick Portrait" 10" x 8" Pencil/Graphite on Cartridge paper

Winged Goddess of Victory - Sketch

This is my first submission to Sherry Massey's "History of Art Challenge" blog. The challenge was to portray, in any medium, a chosen image from Ancient Greece. I chose a very famous statue currently housed in the Louvre, Paris: "Nike of Samothrace", a marble statue from c. 220 - 190 BC, which depicts the winged goddess of victory in full flight. I am woefully untutored in the art history of this time even though I studied it at university. It was an interesting exercise for me as I was enchanted by the pose; the huge triumphant gesture and those delicious folds of drapery. However, to capture those in detail would require a larger sized paper and possible rendering in graphite pencil. Big congratulations to Sherry Massey for starting a challenge blog with an academic angle. I look forward to watching it grow from strength to strength.

"Nike of Samothrace"
Charcoal & Carbon Pencil on Paper - 16" x 12"

More Value Sketches for Portraits

One thing I am learning is that I need to do lots of preparatory sketches before I take on a portrait in oils. My impatience gets the better of me and I love to get stuck in, but I've noticed that the final paintings need a lot of work on getting the values right. I am doing a mini-series on "Melancholy" and decided I needed to get to grips with the correct values and I was right. It took me two sessions to get this basic charcoal sketch as close as possible to the values of the original photograph. After I had finished the first phase I sprayed fixative on it and left it overnight. This is a wonderful part of charcoal drawing because pushing charcoal over the drawing the next day is wonderful - the darks turn to a very deep coal black.

The first one is the correct and final one. After I thought I was finshed, I felt there was something that was just not authentic about the face. I noticed that I had drawn a line around the side of the face closest to the light (second photograph below) and no such line exists in the photograph - the face almost merges with the background. The gouache doesn't look too good, but it helped me see my sketch align with the photograph which was the whole purpose of the exercise. I'm now always going to do value sketches. Always.

"FINAL Value Sketch for Melancholy Portrait Series"
Charcoal & Gouache on Cartridge Paper - 12" x 9" (Approx.)

"Value Sketch for Melancholy Portrait Series"
Charcoal on Cartridge Paper - 12"x 8" (Approx.)

Value Sketches for Portrait

This afternoon after preparing the backgrounds for a few paintings amd feeling so frustrated that I couldn't finish anything, I decided to do a value sketch in preparation for a small portrait I am hoping to do tomorrow. By small I mean 5" x 5"! I haven't done portrait work for ages and I needed to get to grips with the drama of the photograph I am working from as well as the tiny format. This sketch was done rather quickly at night and as a result, I found it hard to capture the nuances of the half tones on the model's face. However, I now know more for when I come to paint the real thing. This was fun but I am not drawing at night again until I get really good lighting. I also tried giving it a blue tint as the background of this portrait will be a bright saturated turquoise. Can anything go wrong?

Preliminary Portrait Sketch
Pencil on Cartridge Paper - 5" x 5"

Preliminary Portrait Sketch - Blue Tint
Pencil on Cartridge Paper - 5" x 5"