Portrait sketches

In our first week we did a couple of exercises with drawing portraits of ourselves and each other.

This was one of my first self portraits, done with green pencil and finished quite quickly.

This drawing was of Sean done in red biro using a continuous line. I actually quite like the finished picture and I liked having to think exactly where I would draw each line.

For the next I quickly scribbled on some chalk as a back ground tint and drew with willow charcoal. I thought this was already a big improvement to my first portrait and I loved having a colour underneath my work which inspired me to paint my pages with watercolour as I posted about previously!

This self portrait was the last one I did that day. I copied the way I tinted the paper before I drew on it using a few different shades of blue soft pastel, and again used willow charcoal to draw with.

Although I got some bits wrong (like my mouth) I still think it's a big improvement from my first drawing and I'm happy with some of the new techniques I've found and liked too!

De Goya

De Goya was a Spanish romantic painter who gained recognition by painting portraits. However he was known for painting people realistically, without flattery as other artists and painters were wont to do at the time. Goya became the court painter to the Spanish Crown and remained so throughout the Peninsula War, staying in Madrid where he painted a portrait of Joseph Bonaparte (right).











Most recognisably he painted the series 'The Black Paintings', which were named and collected posthumously and featured some of my favourite works such as Saturn Devouring his Son and Two Old Men. One of the main reasons I love his work is because of the way his paintings are so dark and grim; even his portraits use dark colours.

Saturn Devouring his Son- image credit to wikipedia.org

However what I think really sets the Black Paintings apart from his other works is the way he uses the paint- his portraits were very lifelike and smooth, whereas the Black Paintings were very loose and rough, with huge brushstrokes and loads of texture.

Goya painted the Black Paintings in the midst of mental illness, and he painted them directly onto the walls in his house after the Napoleonic Wars. This meant they were on massive 'canvases' and I think it's really awesome that he painted them so big inside his home.

image credit to wikipedia.org

This is the painting Two Old Men. As you can see it's painted in the same rough style as Saturn Devouring his Son, with similar colours and a dark background with the subjects popping out of the image.

I think this is an effective way of drawing attention to the point of the painting and is a really good way to show gruesome and harsh figures.

First portraits

In our welcome week, on the Thursday we had a session drawing each other's portraits in different time limits.

The first exercise we did was to draw our hands three times in different poses.

That was my first drawing of the day, and this was the third hand drawn: 

This time I drew it in pen to make it different to the first hand, although I preferred working with pencil because it feels a lot more natural to me as one of my most used tools.

Then I started working on a portrait of Matti, however I didn't particularly like the results as I didn't think they were properly accurate to the way he looks.

Then I scribbled over the surface of my page and sketched Fiona from the course.

I didn't mind this effect but would have liked a little longer to work on the actual portrait.

The next exercise we did was drawing within a shape. I didn't like the profile drawing of Callum I did but I thought the 3/4 view of Sean was quite good. 

Then I went outside to do a few sketches around the campus. I used a softer pencil to sketch the tree below and was quite pleased with the result- usually I struggle drawing trees but I think I drew it accurately and I especially liked the leaves!

The penultimate drawing of the day was a scene sketch of a bench and it's surroundings. 

I liked this drawing too and thought my sketches were improving throughout the day. The proportions of the scene look okay to me and I think I captured the angle of the bench well. :) 

My final sketch was of classmate Tom Lewis and our tutor Ben. I was happy with these because I think I've drawn Tom's expression well and the general figure of Ben looks well in proportion and scale.