Wax Pencil Drawing of a Man’s Face

Wax Pencil Drawing of a Man's Face.

I drew this in my sketchbook using wax pencils. I did it in two or three sessions while I was waiting for my kids at different activities.

It was drawn from a small picture. So I had very little details to work with. I added a few touches to his face to fill in some of the features that were lacking.

I finished it twice. After I finished it the first time I left it alone for a few days and then I came back a few days later to admire my drawing and looking at it afresh felt I needed to redo a few things and deepen the values of the face and add a little something to the background.

The pencils were terracotta, chocolate and ivory black. It is good to work a drawing over with few colors so you get practice in establishing the values of light and dark.

Even though the pencils were the wax type I still found I was able to use the blending stub to blend and deepen some of the color.

Please see the tab for pricing options to commission your own portrait in charcoal.

Adron

Portrait Of An Old Cowboy Drawn in Wax Pencil

Wax Pencil Sketch of the Old Cowboy

Here is a portrait I did of an old cowboy. His face was in a magazine, magazaines are good sources for inspiration. I drew this in a sketchbook using wax pencil. It took longer than I would have liked. The photo had a yellow tint from a fire but my palette was only ivory black, chocolate and terracotta, I also used a basic red from a water color pencil.  I have to say that if you buy good supplies it is more rewarding to work with. I found it necessary to blend with a blending stub and then lift with a gummy eraser as well as a latex eraser and since they were all the  higher end products it was easier than when I used cheaper pencils and paper. I like that the pose is from a slight angle; full face pictures are fine for posterity but the face with a slight turn away is interesting. It would have been easy to get involved with the hat and the coat but I wanted to make it a portrait of an old cowboy not a portrait of a cowboy's hat. I tried to sketch the face with the craggy details that give him character and I tried to capture the peaceful contented expression. 

Drawn in a 9x12 spiral bound Strathmore sketchbook on 60 lb paper with Derwit wax pencil, this took about 5 hours, I would charge about $100.00 to sketch a subject like this for a customer.  

Please see the tab for pricing options to commission your own portrait in charcoal.