…..and some days you don’t. And I just couldn’t get a handle on life drawing tonight at Swansea Print Workshop, so I switched from the full figure to a portrait, which worked better.
This first figure was a fairly quick pose, about 10 minutes. There was a high spotlight on the model, throwing strong shadows, so I tried to focus on the chiaroscuro in the figure rather than linear detail.I’ve used a heavily textured hand-made paper that’s given a very fuzzy surface. I pre-coloured it with blue-black drawing ink and drew with black and white conte crayons.
My next drawing failed completely and I’m not even going to show you! I switched to this portrait that took about 35 minutes, again focussing on light and shade. It’s a lighter, smoother paper, pre-coloured with pink and blue-black acrylic paint. Again, I used black and white conte crayon but added some extra strong lowlights with carbon.
scribblah 
you never fail to surprise and inspire
Thank you 🙂
I find Ben very difficult to draw anyway. Mine were absolutely useless yesterday :S
He has a very large head on a very thin body so he looks out of proportion anyway. But inb the nicest way of course.
🙂
I find things go downhill just before a breakthrough, so hang on in there. The portrait is very sculptural. Good job. Russell.
Thanks. I’m much more pleased with the work I’ve been doing today – will post it tomorrow 🙂
The portrait drawing is very strong. I really like it a lot. Your choice of materials and the expression on the face really reveal the personality of the person that you are drawing. I have to say too that the drawing has a very mid-century, sort of 1960’s, look to it that I find very fascinating. I think it’s one of your best drawings, and I’m really glad that you shared it.
Thank you so much. It was very spontaneous, wasn’t planning a portrait at all 🙂