Wednesday 18 January 2017

portrait in a sketchbook...


So I decided to draw a portrait of my son Harry as a birthday card of sorts. In my A5 Leuchtturm. Portraiture is not something that comes easy although when you break it down it's just a series of facets, shading and highlighting...and colour. It's knowing where to place them all.

I don't have many photos of the big fella as he's not into having his picture taken. I know a few people who are camera-shy so I feel that's normal enough. Instead I drew from a mix of photos from years past and a single recent one he uses as a profile picture. And I added what I knew of his beard, hair and beanie.


As portraits go it's not that great...


I'm happy with the eyes although they're a tad big (if I used Photoshop I could've fixed that)... 



and I enjoyed drawing the beard...


But the nose got progressively more difficult the more I tried to fix it. The shape is mostly right - we each have the little round tip to our noses - inherited from my Mum. The drawing was originally in black fineliner, Unipin 0.1, but as I overworked the nose I applied white gel pen to brighten it and finally got out the ProMarkers to add some colour - anything to distract. 

I like the details enlarged, seeing each pen stroke laid over others. Perhaps that's something I might try using slightly thicker pens on a larger sheet of paper.

Harry likes it though. 

No comments:

Post a Comment