Next, get the A3 photographs. Now, there are many ways in which you can begin to get your image down on paper. Some people use the grid method, some sight size and some comparative measurements. It’s totally up to you. Use whichever way you find works best for you. If you’re going to be doing the work much bigger than the photograph, using a grid can sometimes speed things up however you’re missing out crucial parts of the learning process.

A good way to get your out lines is to ‘block in’, where you simplify the shapes, and go from the general to the specific, slowly and carefully narrowing your straight bold lines down to little details. Once you have your outlines, or the vital info you wish to possess you are ready to begin!

Many artists tell you to work from left top to bottom right, when using this method of drawing; however I usually start with the eyes and work outward. The aim of these techniques is to finish an area completely before moving on.

The way to do this is to build patience. A nice way to look at it is to spend a few hours or maybe a full day, or even a week, doing this one part. Imagine you’re doing lots and lots of tiny little drawings. Rather than just one big one. If you adjust your psychology into seeing it as a little abstract drawing in itself, you are more apt to feel like you have accomplished something today. Maybe you may spend all day doing an inch x inch mini abstract drawing that will eventually amount to a large piece. However, if you see it as, you’re doing one large piece and you have spent all day and only done a wrinkle on his eye, you may feel disheartened and slow. Whatever you do, don’t fall into the trap of getting so excited when you see the face popping out at you and rush. This will lead to the work looking rushed, and believe me, having rushed my work through excitement many a time in the past, it leaves you with a feeling of having just cheated yourself out of an extremely good learning opportunity.

A good way to do the skin around the eyes is to not just look at the photo and copy everything on it. Get a mirror, observe your own eyes, and trust me it’s the next best thing to real life. Play with lighting on your face. Photo’s can be extremely limiting in terms of creativity so try to get the best you can from what you have got. Observe the details on your face and how the light interacts with them. Try to feel the underlying muscles, the texture on his face. There is so much more to this than just copying what you see. When you see a large pour for example, feel its indentation with your mind’s eye.

Tip: To avoid leaning on your work in progress, we have to take extra care by using some simple extra pieces of inventory. In painting, quite often, a Maul Stick is used. This is because you cannot rest your hand on your work surface for pretty obvious reasons... you will smudge and ruin the work. With pencil, you may, use a Maul Stick, should you wish too, and would be best if you’re working on an easel or some sort of vertical stand. However, when doing pencil work, a piece of paper good enough to cover your hand will suffice. Many people use tracing paper. I have tried both and not really noticed any kind of difference. As long as you take care and lift the piece of paper when you’re done with it (without scraping your nails and fingertips into the paper. Bending a corner which would make it easier to grab would work.

Beginning the Drawing

Generalized Lines Red- very simplified, Green more worked in

Reference Photo

OK, so the first thing you could be doing is to bother shifting all of the equipment out of the way again which could potentially leave my fingers dirty, and lead to messing up my nice clean sheet of paper. I would say, take your time setting up carefully, if you’re using a large wooden board like mine, get everything out of the way and lay it down flat on a table. Now either slowly all of your equipment, you will hopefully have seen the items I use to work with, however it is totally up to you, though I would highly recommend using a pencil ;).

Gathering a Reference:

So, photographs. I usually use a Digital SLR however I have used a normal digital camera before to work. Along with television magazines and ordinary photographs. I will usually jot down the kind of image I would like, by using my sketchbook to very roughly scribble in a kind of composition and put a few notes next to it. I have usually then got a vague idea in my head to which I know what to do next. Then I will go to the person I wish to photograph and ask them to pose in the kinds of ways in which I pictured. I will take around 50- 100 photographs using all different kinds of lighting from all different angles, altering expressions or what they are wearing and how they may be posing.

Next, I take the photographs to a pc and choose the ones I feel work best. I usually take around 3 or so to work from as some photographs can be distorted or lack certain details that another may have caught. Then I will often, but not always, put the three into Photoshop and play about with the contrast and brightness. Sometimes sharpening them a little to bring out the details.

Lastly, I print them off. Usually on A3 Paper, some in colour and some in black and white.

Drawing: A Portrait

OK so here you are, about to be taught (hopefully) how to draw your own portrait. The methods that I shall be using are ways in which I have been working over the last few years or so and have found to be a solid way to do a Portrait. What I have done is compiled bits of knowledge, from all over. The internet, friends, family, video’s and of course experience. This is a first for me and have never attempted to teach anybody before but I am more than willing to try.

The techniques I will be using are by no means classical, in the way you would go to an art academy and sit down drawing from the life model and casts, using charcoal and eventually paint etc, the techniques I will be teaching bring the best out of you in only a few places, so limiting your study to this one tutorial is suicide, should you want to become an artist. There are many, many amazing places out there to study, schools, Universities, Art Academies, Apprenticeships etc and many upon many different methods of getting similar results.

Ideas:

Gathering idea’s for me has always been a thing I enjoy. To sit down with a sketchbook and play with this and that, shifting things, arranging compositions etc. Many beginners go about this part of the work very ineffectively. They sit down with a blank sheet of paper or a black sketchbook and go... right now, err... I’ll do this line here? No, no, no. I know, I like pirates, ill draw a pirate... what do they wear, arghhhh, how do I make him look like a pirate...

Sitting down and putting yourself on the spot is never the best way about creating work, and anyway, the idea’s and work will develop and change anyway. Do you think when Da Vinci did the Mona Lisa; he just sat down and went; now I will draw a woman. You firstly start of by inspiring yourself. I find, looking at the internet at images, going to galleries, taking walks or talking to people helps. The original idea may usually come from some kind of philosophical though I may think one day and write down and feel that I would like to do a work about that one day... but say that was what you wanted to do, sitting down and just looking at the quote won’t always work, so to inspire yourself is a must.

This can be done in many ways. Take for example, a stone wall. It maybe a school playground wall on your road, I don’t know, but if you look closer, there is a whole other world on that wall. There are strange mosses, with many different colours, the textures of the stone and the cement holding them together. There is the light which may be hitting it in a certain way. But one thing I have noticed on stone walls is there are always tiny holes where spiders live, little circular cob-webs with a giant hole in the centre leading to a hole in the wall... ooo, what may lurk there. The light might be hitting the wall in a way that casts a small shadow over the hole, which could give it a creepy atmosphere. Begin to imagine what might be in the hole, turn it into a small fantasy story, maybe there are tunnels weaving in and out that stop off at little holes within the wall which can’t be seen from outside, a sort of spider corridor and inside these little holes is a spider family, with a lamp and a newspaper Ha-Ha.

Ok so maybe you don’t (like me) wish for your work to be in that particular direction, but man, it gets your blood flowing. Maybe you want to rush home and draw what you imagined. Maybe you might meet an amazing person who had such an impact on you and such a loving personality. How could you show this in her face? What kind of mouth has she got and how is she using it to give loving signals. The kinds of cloths she wears, again, maybe a sunset is hitting her moist eyes and make her look even more beautiful and amazing. The sky’s the limit!!!

However...

Unless you have had some amazing training or you have been training all your life. It’s often hard to express these emotions without technical skill. Therefore, in aiding my early studies, I have had to become quite reliant and photographs, as I don’t have enough money to go to life drawing sessions. But more importantly, this kind of work requires you to spend so long on the work that drawing from life would be very difficult anyway. However, if you are able to, I recommend that you work this way as much as possible.

Circulism:

There are people who have heard of this and some who haven’t (in the art world). It was made more popular by Maggie Toole in 1992, for which is a technique she used for pencil crayons. It is a way of making a certain mark which can be said to be related to pointillism. In pointillism, you simply use dots. Thousands upon thousands of dots, using in a way to make tone and texture. One famous artist who uses a form of this is chuck close, who used the techniques in his photorealistic works. Circulism relates in the way that you use tiny circles which are then interwoven and gradually layered up to create not only tone very accurately but varying textures. It said to be perfect for realistic skin textures. This is a technique which I have been using for a while now and have found to be very reliable. The best thing I feel I pulled out of it was that it helped me learn about patience. To not hurry your work. If you hurry and rush this technique it will backfire enormously, your work will look scruffy and very amateur. Taking your time with your work is critical. Ok so Rembrandt had amazing work which were said to be completed in a few minutes, maybe even seconds! But that sounds all good and great, however he first learned slowly, spending many, many years practicing his craft until he could do it this quickly. ‘Learn diligence before speedy execution’. (Leonardo Da Vinci).

Works you may wish to see which may blow you away which have been done using the Circulism technique are of Armin Mersmann’s. His work is staggering. Not a bit like academical work, it has a flavour all of its own. Should you look carefully at his work you will see it is not photorealistic but almost real. His work astounds me and is a truly inspirational man. And should you wish to see what patience amounts to, he is a walking example. Some of his works can take a year or so, spending hundreds and hundreds of hours on one piece.

Some people use this technique rigidly, and do the absolute entire piece with it, however, words from the master himself –

‘Drawing in circular strokes should just be one of many patterns and mark making techniques that you as the artist should master. Personally I love the affect it gives but I not to let it dominate or take over a drawing but use it when needed.

Armin’

Links (Circulism Related):

Armin Mersmann Homepage

Circulism- Wikipedia

One of the best ways to keep your wood-cased pencil sharp is to not use pencil sharpeners. I most often use my mechanical pencil, however, I found on my visit to Italy last year to the Angel Academy Of Art, which is an amazing classical atelier, that they sharpened their pencils, by;

1. Firstly, holding your pencil with a firm grip, use a knife, (craft knife may be best) and cut away the wood, about two thirds of an inch down leaving that much ‘lead’ showing (figure I).
2. Then next, grab a piece of sandpaper (fine would be best) Using a tray or something to catch the graphite powder, begin to sharpen the edge of the pencil. The aim is to taper the lead from the wood to the tip and not just the tip of the lead. I could do with a lot of practice with this myself; however here are some images of the process (figure ii). Also, the powder can then be swept up for storing or using on the work your about to do (figure iii). Graphite powder is amazing for backgrounds or covering large parts of the paper with a nice even tone.

Using a tray or something to catch the graphite powder, begin to sharpen the edge of the pencil. The aim is to taper the lead from the wood to the tip and not just the tip of the lead. I could do with a lot of practice with this myself; however here are some images of the process (figure ii). Also, the powder can then be swept up for storing or using on the work your about to do (figure iii). Graphite powder is amazing for backgrounds or covering large parts of the paper with a nice even tone.

Full Equipment List (that you will actually use):

1. This is my leather chamois which is a cloth, usually used by window cleaners and the like, but it can also be used for a tool in drawing. I usually use it for the background, as if I’m doing a plain background; I find it pretty tedious at times. It blends well and leaves a nice texture on the surface of the paper.
2. This is my only 0.3mm mechanical pencil as I don’t use it very often. It’s for small details.
3. My B Mechanical pencil, probably the most used of the lot.
4. My 2B mechanical pencil, used for the darks. Goes dark enough for me most of the time.
5. My H Pencil, good to use as a tool for layering down the graphite.
6. 2H Pencil, one of the second most used pencils
7. 4H Pencil
8. Blending stump
9. A 4B pencil, for the darkest parts, but not widely used.
10. Cotton buds. These are just your ordinary ones which you will probably have in your bathroom and can find them in any chemist ECT. They are good for tight spaces when you’re blending and give a much softer feel and look in comparison to the blending stump.
11. My Craft knife, used for sharpening pencils and also erasers, trimming paper, just a nice handy tool to have around.
12. Kneaded eraser (Saying Hi!)
13. Pencil Sharpener (pretty basic though)
14. Just a new Putty rubber/ Kneaded eraser.