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.