Party girls, or sharpening up

Today's picture is a commission ordered by one girl as a gift to another, and the picture is of the pair of them together. Unfortunately the selection of photos I was offered were taken on a mobile phone with a low-definition camera attached, and so are blurry. Well I say 'unfortunately' but this is where the pencil can do something better than any computer - sharpen an image! Here is the photo chosen for the portrait:

I blew up the image and printed it first, then drew sharper lines around the faces and hands, then copied my own lines onto a new A4 sheet. This time I reverted to the thinner, less textured paper. I find this can be better for drawing younger faces with smoother skin!

The plait of the girl on the left took the longest to draw. It is just not clear enough in the picture, and trying to guess is usually a disaster! In the end I did a few studies or real-life plaits to try and see where the hair goes and what catches the light.

The gold flowers also posed a problem, but I settled for drawing them as-is, so in the finished work they still look fake!

Here is the final protrait:

Speed drawing video of Darth Vader

My son is a big Star Wars fan and asked me to draw him a picture of Darth Vader. We had a look through his books and found a nice picture to copy, and I took a photocopy. I thought it might be fun to film it so I suspended a camera above my head using a tripod. Looked a bit silly but there you go! I only had an hour and half's worth of tape spare so I drew it in a bit of a hurry, but the results are not bad. For most of the detail in the helmet I used the pointed end of a B pencil, with a bit of 2B for the darkest areas, and some H for the lighter areas. In the photograph Darth Vader is standing under some strip lighing so each light bulb is reflected in the helmet. I left these parts white.

The cloak was drawn with the flat side of a B pencil, with extra shading in the darker areas to give the illusion of folds in the cloth.

Here is the video:

And in case you are not impressed enough, the piano version of the Imperial March is played by me :)

Here's Darth:

And lest you forget, here's my Elvis video:

Done on the same table, before I realised how to suspend the camera!

Here's Elvis:

Happily for me I managed to sell this one, but let me know if you'd like me to draw you one!

Brave new world...

Hello. I am now on Facebook!

I think you can get to my page this way: http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100003499591344

Good luck:)

Little boy in a kimono

The latest picture is actually from a full-length portrait of a little boy wearing a kimono. The face was quite small in the original hard copy so I took a high-resolution scan and blew it up (enlarged not exploded). The resultant picture was still quite blurred, but there was enough detail to be going on with.

For this picture I went back to the old method of a 2B pencil on the older smooth paper. The face was done as usual, with the shading the result of the side of the pencil, and the detail done with the point. The kimono was fun too. It's actually easy to draw - simply shade with the side of the pencil in the direction of the collar, i.e. from the neck to the point in the middle of the chest. (Whatever you do, don't draw the robe as right over left - this is reserved for corpses!!) A few dark and light areas give the illusion of creases in the fabric. Experiment with this and you'll find you can create life-like images.

Not a lot else to say about this one, other than this boy has the cutest little cheeks I have ever seen!

See all the latest pictures at http://pencil-pictures.co.uk.

A new sketch pad - Alfred Hitchcock

I was in town the other day and decided to look at sketch pads. WHSmiths does a pad with really thick textured paper so I thought I would try it. I have a long mental list of people I want to draw and decided on British film director Alfred Hitchcock, he of the distinctive jowly jaw. For this first picture I went back to using a 2B pencil for the whole sketch. This worked nicely in the very dark areas under his chin, and also for the lines on his forehead.

Lines are fun to draw. Hext time you see someone with a lined forehead, especially when they are raising their eyebrows, have a look at the light. The forehead is divided into folds of skin separated by lines. The lines are very dark, but the top of each fold is light. So a lined forehead is basically light fading to dark at the line, then immediately light again for the next fold of skin. Try it - it is really effective. (In Alfred Hitchcock's case, the light source is quite low, and his face is raised, so his wrinkles go the opposite way, but I hope you get the idea!)

The textured paper shows up best when using the side of a pencil as opposed to the point, so for a textured skin tone use the flat of the pencil. I like the effect on Alfred's clothes as well.

Finally when I had finished the face, I decided that the left side was too bright and not easily defined, so I shaded the background a bit on that side. Now you can clearly see his profile:

Let me know what you think in the comments section! As usual you can see the latest pics at http://www.pencil-pictures.co.uk.

Marylin Monroe

This picture was another suggestion by a friend. Marylin Monroe is a popular subject for portraits, both photos and sketches/paintings, so inevitably mine would be compared with others, but I decided it was worth it. As usual I Googled a picture and found this nice one of MM looking down at the camera with arched eyebrows.

For this picture I used only a B pencil and a very cheap sketchpad which I picked up from a shop near my office. The paper is very thin, but it is also very smooth, which makes the pictures look quite different. The problem is that pencil lines look very much like pencil lines... Let me explain. If I draw a line with either the point or the side of a pencil lead on a textured piece of paper, the undulating nature of the paper means that the line is already quite interesting before going any further. This is not the case with smooth paper, so I 'cheated' and in the smooth areas of the faces used my finger to smudge the darker shadows into the right places. I also made the earrings far simpler - after all they don't make the face any more or less recogniseable!

Anyway, here she is. Let me know what you think in the comments setion:

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