Self Portrait

It's about time I did a self-portrait, but rather than the usual style I've decided to do mine also portraying my other passion in life - motorcycling. So I'm doing a portrait of me in my crash helmet!

As with the other portraits I start with a pencil outline. This is done on a sheet of A3 cartridge paper with a mechanical pencil which has an HB 0.5 lead.

Once the pencil outline is correct I switch to a Bic Biro pen, this one has black ink. This is quite scary, as there's no room for error when drawing with ink; unlike pencil I can't erase the mistakes. But I draw with a Biro pen everyday in my sketchbooks when I'm sculpting and I'm actually a little more comfortable with it than with a pencil. So here goes!

I always start with the eyes and I start with the darkest part of the eye, the pupil, and work outwards from there. One side of the face is in sunlight (notice the line down the nose denoting the change from light to shadow) and the eyes are squinting from both the sun and smiling, so there's not much light getting into the eyes. So the eyes are quite dark and they'll be part of the darkest areas of the whole portrait. The shadows in the nostrils are also just as dark, so I put those in too, to help me balance out the dark areas.

I start shading in the side of the face that is naturally in shadow so that I can build up the gradual layers of tone to create the three-dimensional effect. I don't tend to work in just one area and move outwards; I tend to hop around from area to area, building them up systematically as I go. This works for me, but it's just personal choice.

As I hop around the drawing I try and link the areas as quickly as possible, so that one section doesn't get overworked, making the whole picture too dark. It also helps me keep the features in proportion to each other by stepping back and checking it regularly and that helps to prevent any distortion by concentrating too much on one spot.

I'm using a cross-hatching technique, much in the same way as a pencil. I can apply a range of pressures to the pen from a light to heavy line as I put it onto the paper and this can create the same tonal effect as a pencil. With practice it's quite easily to shade with a Biro pen, but it needs confidence as one mistake can ruin the whole sketch!

It's the same process as creating Carl's portrait in the previous blog post, but the effect can be a lot bolder and I think it'll work well with the black plastic of the crash helmet. We'll see!

Carl's Portrait Finished!!

Okay, this could be a mammoth post - the portrait is finished, and there's been a lot of work done since the last post... so, here goes...

With the main part of the face almost complete, I start work on the hair, the beard, and the helmet Carl is wearing as part of his re-enactment costume.

The hair is built up much in the same way as the mustache; deliberate pencil strokes put down in the direction of the strands of hair themselves. All the time I'm adding pencil marks, I bear in mind where the light is hitting the hair and make sure to lighten the pencil strokes in this area.

You'll also note I have a sheet of paper that lays on top of the drawing - this is to stop my hand smudging the pencil that's already down on the paper as I work on the other side of face. Carl's hair is dark, and as this part is on the opposite side to the intense sunlight, it will be the largest dark part of the image. To make sure I don't go too dark, I start work on the metal helmet he's wearing. By working round the whole image like this I can make sure that one part doesn't become too dominant in the balance between light and dark, thus keeping the focus on the main part of the face.

I mentioned in the last post about using a Q-tip or cotton swab for blending the pencil to create a softness, and I use this method quite heavily in the creation of the helmet. I need to ensure the helmet has a different textural look than to the face and hair. The metal, although dented and scuffed a little, is still smooth and somewhat reflective, so I carefully blend the pencil and add detail to create the smooth but worn look of the metal.

With the metal helmet pretty much done I go back to the hair. Finding the balance on both sides of the face is very important; by that I mean the overall composition of the portrait. The composition is the placing of the dark and light elements around the image. If one side of the drawing is too dark or too light that it makes your gaze go to just that part, then the drawing has failed. I need to make your eyes move fluidly around the drawing, seeing the focal point first and then comfortably moving around the detail, taking in the whole image, until you are drawn back to the focal point.

The left side of the drawing is pretty easy to work on; there's no direct sunlight on the hair, so I just need to capture the texture of the hair, but it's a totally different story on the other side of the face...

...the sun is highlighting the hairs on Carl's beard. There's two ways I can deal with this. One is to create the beard and then lift off the pencil marks to create the highlights with a putty rubber. But the detail is too small for the putty rubber and it lifts off too much of the surrounding pencil. The other way is to keep the paper white in the areas of the individual hairs. Again, the detail is small, so I carefully put down the marks for the beard whilst trying not to block out the white paper where I want the sunlit hairs to be. This takes time, patience and a very steady hand!

But bit by bit the beard is created, and after stepping back several times to take an appraisal of the drawing, I reach the point where the portrait is finished...

It's a successful portrait. It looks like him, I've illustrated the sunlight on his face, I've created realistic detail in the skin, hair and metal of the helmet, and I've retained the focal point whilst still creating areas of interest around the whole face and I don't think it needs anymore work. I think Carl will be happy with it too.

Carl's Portrait continued...

Only had an hour to play on the drawing board and even that had numerous interruptions from the phone! But here's the progress I made...

 

I'd finished working on the brow and forehead for the time being, and moved onto the bottom of the face. Carl has a very distinct smile, with a mustache and a beard so there's a lot to do here! As well as that, he's being lit by bright sunshine, so I have to pay close attention to texture, form and light.

I'm using a variety of pencil marks to create the smoothness of the skin and the roughness of the mustache. By gently laying down light, soft pencil marks and blending with the Q-tip I create the tones of the skin. The mustache is created by stronger, darker lines which are applied quite firmly in bold strokes, largely in the direction of the hairs which make up the overall mustache.

Trying to suggest the darkness of the mustache in very bright sunlight is a bit of a challenge and I do this by laying down the dark pencil lines and then using a putty rubber to lift of the majority of the pencil. It helps create some texture, a hint of what's there, but allows the lightness of the paper to show through, suggesting the sunlight. So far, so good but time's run out and I'll have to grab another hour tomorrow.

Carl's Portrait continued...

Work is just crazy busy at the moment so I was only able to grab a short while to sketch on Carl's portrait; here's where I left off from before...

The face is lit by bright sunlight, coming from the right hand side of the image, and I'm trying to keep that sense of warm sunlight flooding the face. So each stage of tonal build-up is carefully done, so as not to darken the whole portrait too much.

Using the mechanical pencil I very lightly start adding lines to build the form of the nose. To soften any lines that I don't want showing I use the end of a Q-tip or cotton swab, very gently rubbing the pencil to blend and soften the marks, but always being aware of where the darker build up of pencil is going; I don't want to distort the look of the nose. As I'm blending, if there's too much pencil on the Q-tip I just grab another one. There are different tools you can use for blending; I just find the cotton swabs easiest and they're cheap and plentiful.

When I've done some work on the nose I move back to the forehead.

Again, I'm laying down a subtle layer of pencil and blending using the cotton swab. Any excess pencil that builds up I carefully remove with a putty rubber, and then gently blend again. I move around the face this way, building tone and form a little at a time, so as not to overload any area of the portrait with too much dark pencil. I need to retain that feel of sunlight, so doing a little at a time works best for me.

That's all I've got time for, the sculpting is calling, so this'll have to wait again til tomorrow!

Quick Face Sketch.

Have you ever had iritis? I hope not 'cos it's a painful inflammation of the iris and boy, it's no fun! The last few weeks have been a bit of a challenge to both rest my eyes and stay on top of my workload. Something had to take a back seat so I haven't been sketching for a while. But my eyes are well on the mend, so I picked a pencil back up for a quick little sketch...

I took some photos of a guy I met recently and will be working on a portrait of him very soon, but I wanted to take a better look at the images I've got and have a closer look at the face. Drawing from observation is a skill that needs practice; taking time to really look at the lines, shapes, and details of the face instead of glancing and working from whatever made it into your memory. Really looking and studying the face is like exercising a muscle, it takes effort and discipline, but the rewards are a much better drawing, so it's worth it!

At this stage I'm making a loose sketch of the shadows that define the form of the face, and checking whether I'm capturing the correct shape and proportion of the face. I'm using a mechanical pencil on a cheap cartridge paper, this will not be part of the portrait, and as it's just a practice sketch I'm not using my best paper.

I can see by this stage, that although the face in itself looks fairly realistic and believable, it's not an accurate representation of the guy. I've made the nose too small, I think you can see the original line almost ghosting the nose, but I let myself be tricked into thinking it would look too big. As I said, drawing from observation is a skill that needs to be practiced!
Enough for today, gonna give my eyes a break and work again tomorrow.