I left off yesterday's sketching with the remainder of the face to do, the neck and shirt and sharpening up details in the face.
Continuing to use a combination of a mechanical pencil with 0.5mm lead, a HB and 2B pencils and a kneadable eraser I worked the edge of the face and neck into the drawing, blending gently with the tip of a cotton wool bud. Working at a different time of the day meant the light was very different - the previous picture is yellow in tone as I had a couple of lamps on over the drawing. The next one is blue in comparison as I was able to work in more natural daylight than I had yesterday. It's much easier to see form and shading like this, well, for me it is anyway.
I sketched the lines of the shirt and necklace and blended them a little and decided to stop there. I want the portrait to focus purely on the face. I would probably detail the shirt if I was incorporating the background, but as I'm not, I'll leave all the focus just on the face. To add the final details to the face, particularly the eyes, I used a 5B pencil to really darken the values in the eyes so that hopefully they stood out a little more, making them the focal point.
So here's the comparison of the person and the portrait...
I'm ashamed to say it's been a good few years, (maybe even ten?!!), since I've really drawn a face like this, so on the whole I'm happy with it. The photo here doesn't show his freckles which I shied away from adding to this drawing; I decided to quit while I was ahead! Next time! Already sketching on a daily basis is improving my very rusty skills so maybe I'll revisit this portrait at a later date and give him his freckles!
