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Kieth Richards has a wonderful lived in face and I am sure he has lived. As we mortals look on his face makes a good subject for todays practice.

Homework

After spending so much time looking in class and not seeing,  as soon as you  grid it out and draw it’s obvious where your mistakes are.

Actually I was not far off  head and body fine and the width of the shoulders just the length of the upper arms and the angle of the fore arms.

Anyways pleased with my Homework and looking forward to our next class.

Struggling and Learning

Struggling this week at class, I thought a straight on pose might be good and spent most of the class struggling with the arms of our model; they ended up without hands which I need to practice to an all-round unsuccessful sketch. So I took a couple of reference pictures and gridded them up for some homework.

This weeks class

At my class this week we had an Interesting subject, a Sikh gentleman who had some wacky armour.

After sorting out which side of the easel you should stand I put my new charcoal skills to the test a couple of 10 minute poses and a third made for an interesting night.

I think my charcoal sketches are more successful than my pencil efforts I now need to start thinking about the composition.

Tonight’s Practice

Still practicing with charcoal, using for reference a picture by Mary Jane Ansell another PB portrait award winner, I am not sure I have done the tones in her picture justice but its all good learning.

Finding Subjects

Where do you get subjects from, my interest is people and portraits but I don’t feel I am good enough to ask people so I resort to magazines books and the internet, trying to put aside just how far I have to go I find these an ok source of subjects.

At last year’s PB portrait awards I picked up a book of 500 portraits, a great resource for ideas. I have had a go at Ian Chumberlands picture “Just to feel normal” they are so realistic it’s like drawing from life.

Charcoal

Second week at my life drawing class I am starting to settle in, not feeling that  intimidated by the other students.

Looking around I see many are using charcoal, I had a go a while ago but thought I should take a second look.

Charcoal comes in compressed sticks of different hardness pencil of different colours and straight out of the furnace as burnt sticks, Ordered a little selection along with a putty rubber to have a go, it all dropped through the door today so I am sharing my efforts.

Not sure about the pencils they are very hard and the putty rubber doesn’t lift the charcoal off the page , still great fun and loads of mess,  all set  to try it  at my next class.

 

Juggling

New year and I am juggling stuff not in a hurried or panic way , just what do I do next. My maharaja that got the big paint over is now a  portrait that seams to have stalled, I have started a sort of Mona Lisa picture and started a new life drawing class, all a bit scary but enjoyable.