Friday, September 7, 2012

Sketchbook Portraits- this week in prismacolor

What really interests me in portraits is doing them eventually from life, that's what all my practice has been leading up too---feeling confident enough to ask someone to sit for me.  The last couple weeks I've attended an open studio life drawing session and tried my hand with the prismacolor markers I've been experimenting with of late.  My first attempts came out terrible, so much so I didn't want to post them.  I was happier with my second attempt---lots of practice is needed still, but I feel I'm getting better.  I sometimes question posting these in-between works, the growing pains, but I also like to see other artist's early works and their evolution. I hope it's interesting to you too.

So here's a few samples from my last live model session.  All the poses are 20 minutes only! Very challenging but extremely exciting to being doing them from a real three dimensional person.

All are prismacolor markers and graphite on paper:







2 comments:

  1. You are developing a lighter touch with the markers. Talk about unforgiving - I suppose it's a bit like using watercolors - once it's on the canvas, there's no taking it off. Your top study of the model looks especially relaxed and confident on your part.

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  2. It's so unforgiving. My first attempts (another session that resulted in images I didn't post) I left the studio with a headache from concentrating so hard---trying to think fast and accurately. The portraits I do at home take me more than an hour. The poses at the studio are 20 minutes! This time I tried something different. First I did a simple line drawing with pencil and then added the marker. I did as much as I could in a relaxed fashion until the timer went off. It was much better.

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