portrait sketches

Nearly all of the sketches here are made from life and as such are usually rapidly-made (often in 15 minutes or so) and incomplete. They’re notes that try to capture something of a likeness. The first lot of drawings are all of children – and they just won’t stay still – won’t ‘sit’. If one’s not to draw from a photo – which I certainly want to avoid with a head – then you have in the end just to find a way to deal with it. So I draw throughout the movement. If there is a choice, then it is one of whether to ‘compensate’ for the movement, and if so, how much. Often I do so as little as possible.

To me, drawing is a process necessarily with attendant components of thought, feeling, movement and time passing – this sets it apart from photography.  I think a lot of people when drawing carry in their heads exemplary paradigms – either of photographic similarity – or if not that, then one based on renaissance perspective – so endemic to 2-D art for the last 600 years or so, that it’s still thought of as the ‘right way’ to put 3 into 2-D!

For me, what might start out as, say, a profile could end up combined with a three-quarters view – something I find helps me to discover ‘where a face goes’ more than a photo ever could. Sometimes I’ll slightly distort and exaggerate features too. So what one ends up with is an elusive likenesses – it comes and goes. And when you consider that it’s possible to take a photo of someone whom you know closely such that it is: ‘nothing like them’ or to take another that ‘captures them’, it’s clear to me that likeness has little to do with the medium or process…

gel pen portrait sketches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

▲ Gel pen portrait sketch

 

portrait sketch

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gel pen portrait sketch

pen sketch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gel figure sketch

pen portrait sketch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gel pen portrait sketch

pen portrait sketch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gel pen portrait sketch

 

gel pen portrait

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gel pen portrait sketch

gel pen portrait sketch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gel pen portrait sketch

airport waiting room drawing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gel pen portrait sketch

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Gel pen portrait sketch – Sleeping Child

 

gel pen sketch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gel pen portrait sketch

 

gel pen portrait sketch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gel pen portrait sketch

gel pen portrait sketch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gel pen portrait sketch

portrait sketch watercolour and pen

Portrait sketch – watercolour over biro

portrait sketch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gel pen portrait sketch

portrait sketch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gel pen portrait sketch

contour drawing face

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gel pen portrait sketch

biro portrait sketch

 

 

 

 

 

Portrait sketch – watercolour over biro

portrait sketch gel pen and watercolour

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portrait sketch – watercolour over biro

portrait sketch pen

Gel pen portrait sketch

 

pen and watercolour

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portrait sketch – watercolour over gel pen

pen and watercolour

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Halloween portrait sketch – watercolour over gel pen

portrait sketch coloured pencil

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portrait sketch – coloured pencil
Another way to convey the passage of time is simply to draw and redraw a subject and then compare and contrast. But beware, this can be scary!  I don’t know many people who’ll readily agree to sit for a drawing — unless they’re being paid for it or sitting for a commission. I know I’m not at all keen.  So these self-portraits were made as a result of the usual necessity — there being no-one else around at the time, which was just as well! The first were made in the early Eighties, the second lot about thirty years on plus!!

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self portrait acrylic paint

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

self portrait acrylic paint

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

slef portrait biro

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

self portrait biro and watercolour

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

portrait acrylic paint

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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‘Selfie’ 2017 biro drawing for the Drawing Class I teach

 

Here follows a random selection of drawings made from other people – all adults!

watercolour portrait sketch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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image089

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

image091

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

image095

 

 

 



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