A Quick Sketch for Fun Of a Young Gypsy Woman's Face

The human face is the most challenging of all artist endeavors.  There is so much that can be communicated in the face through expression and pose.  Every picture should tell a story and you could paint or sketch the same person a hundred times and never repeat the same expression or duplicate the same message.

I believe an artist must draw portrait often and paint people with every opportunity.  So when I had a few minutes on a Sunday afternoon with nothing else to do I pulled out a magazine with some people and randomly selected one to sketch.  I do not waste time choosing since I will eventually sketch all of them.

I have some art supplies hidden under the couch so I can respond to the artist craving if it should hit me while I am sitting in the living room watching tv or something, so I pulled the pad and a generic pencil out and began a quick scribble sketch of the face of a young lady sitting on a gypsy wagon step illustrated in the magazine.

My approach was to just sketch quickly and not worry about details.  I scribbled things in place lightly and then scribbled corrections over the first scribble.  Appling more pressure I added more form and shading.  There was another round of corrections with hasty scribbles and more shading.  This was my approach throughout as more pressure was applied and values deepened.

Only when the picture was done did I erase anything and that was only a little around the eyes to sharpen the detail some and a little lifting of some shadows that had gotten out of control.

Often I spend a lot of time with a blending stub but this time I only used the stub around the background.  It is a drawing and not a photo, so I am not trying to make it look super realistic but just to represent the subject while making a piece of art.

It turned out to be a nice value study of a face. It would be the first step to doing a more serious painting.

Quick Pencil Sketch of Young Woman Wearing a Beret Hat/

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Watercolor of Young Asian Woman in Knit Hat

This is a watercolor of a young friend and student of mine. She has a face of such subtle expressions that I am quite captured by it.  She was wearing a hat during an art lesson and I took some snapshots of her. She was not particularly happy with the idea of me taking pictures when she was not prepared but I liked the spontaneity of it.

She is a very spiritual person and it is refreshing to find that in a young lady. I hope to capture her reflective nature in art.

Her long black hair gives some extra dimension to the portrait. Normally I downplay the hair since it is so subject to fashion and I don't want some future generation looking at the painting and saying what strange hair styles they had back when that was painted, I want them to see something deeper in the person I am portraying not clothing or hairstyle. In her case, the long hair is so intrinsic with the young lady that I couldn't consider painting her without the long black strands.

This painting took about eight hours to finish over a period of two weeks. I find that if I try to do too much at once I get enthralled with some little area and sacrifice other parts. I took a long time sketching the face. I did the background with the same color as her blouse to strengthen the mystical effect of her personality. I put blue highlights in her hair, it is a little artificial but I wanted to pull the background into the portrait. At one point I had blue in her face but as I was working it over the blue was washed out by the warmer tones of her skin. Her complexion is more chocolate than I portrayed her, I have had this problem before with the Asian complexion. I think that the blue background is affecting my pallet and choice of colors.

The knit cap was a salmon red but I toned it down for the painting and used it for a texture contrast to the other textures of the hair and background.

It photographed warmer than it actually is.

Young Asian Woman With A Knit hat

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Charcoal and Pencil Portrait Of Young Woman

 I do not attempt to draw something to make it look like a photo but I want my drawings to look like a drawing so I leave some of the creative processes in place and use the pencil strokes to give a rough effect, as you can see here in a little sketch I did while watching tv with my wife.

I hide some paper and pencils in a box under the couch so when I am in the living room I can just pull them out and do a little doodle.

My inspiration was a woman in a magazine. It was just the first one I saw and had no real reason other than keeping busy during my wife's show.

The face at three-quarters with a tilt is one I have a lot of difficulty with so it turned out to be a good choice since I could use the practice.

I started with a light pencil sketch and then went over it with a light charcoal pencil. I use the rubbing stub to blend and then reworked the whole picture again. I had to use a kneaded erasure a bit to keep things clean. I noticed some of my original pencil marks from my beginning sketch was creating an interesting effect of randomness as they crossed some other lines, so instead of eliminating them, I went over them again to deepen the value and left them in. I reworked the entire project again using a darker charcoal pencil and did more cleaning up. I reintroduced some of the pencil effect in the shadow behind the head in the upper left and lower areas.

Sketch while watching TV

It was a fun picture to draw.

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Watercolor pencil and marker portrait of woman in 3/4 view

This is a little doodle I did with some watercolor pencils and I finished it up with a marker.  It is an ok picture and really a project that was a practice piece.  I wish I had my kneaded erasure with me so I could have lifted out some of the pencil that I used for the basic drawing- it just goes to show you that you should always be prepared.

Using watercolor pencils are not something I do often but I didn't want to get all involved with setting up my paints. Watercolor pencils are easy to sketch with and then you can wash over them to blend and deepen the colors. They are a little hard for me to control still but I hope with more practice that I will get the hang of it.

The picture turned out a little more representational than I wanted it to look I was hoping for something more artsy.

Watercolor pencil and marker portrait.

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Pocket Sketchbook Portrait

I carry a pocket sketchbook and recommend all artist do. I have had many opportunities to sketch and was glad to have the little 4x6 book handy. Sometimes I keep it in a coat pocket or in a messenger bag with some other art supplies, including pencils and mediums and a few photos or a magazine with pictures to use for inspiration. Sometimes I might be in a coffee shop and jut pull out a magazine and start from there to do a picture and that was how this little portrait came to be. As I drank a cup of coffee I pulled out a clothing catalog I picked up and kept in my messenger bag.  In the catalogue was a woman modeling a sweater with a high collar. I felt it was time to just do a little drawing of a face so I sketched this one out.

I used a basic hb pencil and a stub for most of it and then a few erasers like a classic pink eraser and an artist's kneaded eraser. I sketched it lightly at first and then progressively darkened things over until I felt it was done which probably means I got bored with the project. After sketching it I crumpled up the resource page from the magazine and went back home. At home I looked at it again without the benefit of the original photo and I made a few changes to the hair and face.

I like the results and it was a rewarding afternoon with coffee and my sketchbook.

Portrait done in a pocket sketchbook

I may use this as a study for a painting at some future date.

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

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(c) Adron