I feel like I am getting a good handle on drawing graphite portraits at the moment. I have completed a couple of successful (in my mind anyway) drawings in a row now. There is something to be said for sticking to a theme until you (almost) perfect it! What’s that theory… 10,000 hours to become an expert? I have such squirrel tendencies it’s impossible for me to stay focused on any one thing for an extended period!
Last week I had finished the graphite part of this drawing. You can read about the process and see some work in progress photos here. I could have left it at that but I have been doing so many graphite pieces of late I really felt like adding a bit of colour. I decided to break out the gouache paints as I like the opaque, flat almost ‘poster paint’ nature of them. None of that pesky, uncontrollable watercolour behaviour! I don’t feel particularly confident with any kind of painting so putting paint to paper is always a bit scary for me There is always a high risk that I am going to stuff it up royally. Hence it was quite a few days before I dived in but I am so glad I did. I am really happy with the end result.
I’m back with Part 2 of my attempt to draw portraits of “real” people. (You can read Part 1 here). This portrait is of one of my lovely yoga students, Kirsten. I finished the graphite pencil part of my portrait a couple of weeks ago and this week it was time to finish it off with a bit of colour.
