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!

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:

http://pencil-pictures.co.uk



One of the pics that started me off

This is the picture that effectively encouraged me to launch the site www.pencil-pictures.co.uk a few months back. This is a picture of my little girl when she was about 4 years old. I can date it by the fact that her first adult tooth was showing!

I happened to find the photograph whilst looking for something else and thought it was really sweet, and on a whim decided to put pencil to paper to see if I could capture her likeness. Whilst not perfect, I was not displeased with the result, and she is definitely recogniseable from the picture. The mouth is a little bit too dark and a little bit crooked, and one of these days I might go back and change it (though I doubt it). However the shape of the face is just right. She used to have lovely cute baby cheeks (alas now sadly gone) as shown here.

The hardest part was the hair. I had not drawn hair for many years and so tried to draw the individual strands - big mistake! So then I tried to divide the hair into different shaded areas and draw the strands on top. This approach has served me well since, but for this protrait I was just getting my bearings. I have not changed it because I think it is a good idea to compare old pictures with new ones to see if I have improved. Thankfully I usually have (though not always!) so it's a confidence booster - I'd encourage any other budding artists to do the same.

I plan to draw her again one of these days.

The long-lost son of Humphrey Bogart?

Today I am writing about a commission I received from the gentleman pictured, who has agreed to let me write about his picture for this blog. As soon as I saw the photo, I thought I had discovered a relative of Humphrey Bogart! Take a look at those eyes and those lips... but apparently any resemblance is purely coincidental (or so he tells me).

This was a great picture to draw, and not only because of the distinctive eyes, nose and mouth (the royal flush of an interesting face!). The light falls almost exclusively on the left side of the face, meaning that almost no shading was required there. On the other hand (or cheek) the right side is completely in shadow. Obviously being a pencil drawing, a good contrast is essential so I deliberately darkened that side whilst letting the white colour of the paper do the work of the highlights on the other side. The result was very satisfactory.

The other intersting point about this picture, which makes it different from anything I have done recently (click here to see the gallery) is the very short hair and beard. For this I shaded the area to the required darkness level then used a retractable pencil with a B lead to draw the very short hairs. I think the results are effective but please leave any comments below.

The subject was pleased with the result, so much so that he says he is taking it to the Louvre...