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1/29/23 Museum Aquarelles in Hahnemuhle 100% cotton sketchbook |
With my portrait practice since last October, I’ve been
focusing mostly on ballpoint, brush pens, graphite, dry colored pencils –
almost everything except my favorite material for urban sketching:
watercolor pencils. Although I think of myself as being fairly adept with
watercolor pencils by now, human faces feel very different from urban scenes. Trees,
cars, trash cans and buildings are more forgiving than the subtle planes of the
face. But with more than a hundred portraits under my belt now, I pulled
out a few Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelles and gave myself a shove.
In my first try (at left), I used the technique I’m most familiar with
outdoors – spritzing trees. I put in a heavy application of color on the shaded
side of the man’s face (all reference photos by Earthsworld) and gave
him a quick shower.
With a couple of portraits (below), I used an Uglybooks
sketchbook, which is sized for dry media. Although I knew the paper wouldn’t
hold up well to a lot of water, I tried it anyway, just to see what would
happen. I applied fairly heavy layers of color, then used a waterbrush to
activate. As expected, the paper buckled, and the color didn’t float at all. The
effects I got weren’t necessarily bad – just not what I was after. It was
interesting to try, anyway.
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1/31/23 Museum Aquarelles in Uglybook sketchbook |
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1/31/23 Museum Aquarelles in Uglybook sketchbook |
The rest of the portraits shown here are in a square Hahnemühle sketchbook with 100 percent cotton paper. (This is not the Akademie Aquarell book I use for general urban sketching, which is not 100 percent cotton.)
Although I’ve used the 100 percent cotton book for many small urban sketches
since last summer because it (barely) fits in my fitness-walking bag, these
portraits made me appreciate the paper’s quality more than I usually do.
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1/30/23 Museum Aquarelles in Hahnemuhle 100% cotton sketchbook |
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1/30/23 Museum Aquarelles in Hahnemuhle 100% cotton sketchbook |
My general technique is to draw the hair and facial features
and then drag a waterbrush downward through the drawing on the shaded side. (Of course, the risk is that I will use too much water or not enough – I only get a single shot – and my carefully drawn features might be "ruined." But that’s always the risk of using unpredictable water media, isn’t it?) If
features get too washed out, I wait until the page is dry, then go back in with
dry pencils to redraw details that may have been lost. The cotton paper and
excellent sizing both keep the pigments afloat long enough to make the subtle
washes that I like on faces. I don’t really take advantage of these paper
qualities when I’m out on location, but here they really shine.
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2/1/23 Museum Aquarelles in Hahnemuhle 100% cotton sketchbook |
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2/1/23 Museum Aquarelles in Hahnemuhle 100% cotton sketchbook |
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1/30/23 Museum Aquarelles in Hahnemuhle 100% cotton sketchbook |
Most of these portraits capture a reasonably good
resemblance of their models, but my favorite is actually the one that bears the
least resemblance (the woman in glasses with short, spikey hair, at right). It achieves a
level of looseness or freshness that I have been reaching for but didn’t know
how to get. Maybe it just takes doing something nearly daily more than a
hundred times for that freshness (or whatever it is) to finally kick in. That’s
what creativity is: Not a flash of inspiration from a muse but just opening the
sketchbook every day.
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Even more inspiring now! |
Incidentally, I am currently re-reading Portrait Revolution, a book I was introduced to two years ago by a sketcher on
Instagram who has taken part in Julia Kay’s Portrait Party. The party
originated as a worldwide Flickr group with local groups that have also met in
person (hey, sounds like Urban Sketchers!). On Flickr, members must upload
their own photos to be used as references by group members, and then they can also
draw or paint from the photos of other members. I haven’t participated yet, but
I intend to soon.
When I first read it, I felt inspired by the hundreds of
portraits made in a huge variety of styles and media, but I didn’t do much
other than a selfie. Now that I’ve been focusing on portraiture for several
months, I’m much more ready to soak in the inspiration offered by the book. In
fact, it was after I began re-reading that I started making these watercolor
pencil portraits, so it is obviously giving me a push in some indirect way – as
a good book will do.
"...just opening the sketchbook everyday." I do believe in that! Portrait drawing is very challenging but like you said, "it's doing something nearly daily more than a hundred times for that freshness." Great job on these portraits!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Mel! I know you know the benefit of sketching regularly! It shows in your work, too!
DeleteTina, your progress has really made me want to set aside a sketchbook for studying faces again! I really like the cyan 1/30 sketch. The way his face softens in shadow and the saturation of the shadowed areas are both very nice.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I stayed away from portraiture for a long time because I knew how challenging it would be, but it's no worse than any other subject matter... it's just takes the usual practice. ;-)
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