portrait: Frankie pour Donna

My pal Donna just moved across country with her dog Frankie after spending a hellish last few years in Los Angelos. I have made portraits of her all her dogs since we met so the the tradition continues. 

Drawn with sketchbook pro on the iPad and refined a little with Sketchbook pro on desktop. 

illustration: Muffin

 

My cousin just had a big birthday and I offered to do a drawing for her. She chose her cat as the subject and I was glad to do it but I never meet the cat or take my own references photos because she hid the entire time I was visiting. I tried several versions. One with white highlights and a grey background which looked too dark for a (mostly) white cat and one with just black ink but it looks too flat so I ended up with black ink on white with some grey shading to push it out a little. 

I used Sketchbook Pro on the computer and was a great to work with. The iPad version has been weird lately with not great palm rejection and some other issue. It is still my go to for ink when I can use it. 

Portrait: Elizabeth and Alex

 

Elizabeth and Alex are the children of previous portrait Jeannette. I thought both together would be a nice challenge. It went through a few changes. Elizabeth's arm around Alex's neck was drawn in then erased because it looked odd and Jeannette did not want the name of the school on Alex's shirt so that had to go. 

The changes were done really quickly as they were not in any place with a lot of detail and non e of them were important to the overall composition. 

Portrait: Jeannette

 

Another friend series portrait done. This wasn't the best reference I ever took so I had to really work and modify things to get it looking right. I haven't done long hair in a while so I used my old technique of laying down guide lines to show the general flow and filling in from there. She was fresh out of the pool when I took the reference photos so a little dishevelled and no makeup which I think adds to the naturalness of her expression. I also forget everything I wrote in a previous post apparently and did it in Procreate. 

portrait: Luc-Alexandre

 I took not enough photos at pride this year but did sneak in some I thought I could use for portraits. This was the only one I think that was good enough for that. My boyfriend did not think it look like Luc at all, then again he assumed it was a portrait of him at first for some reason. I decided to show it to Luc-A anyway and he really liked it so I guess its OK. This one has more shading than I would usually use in a mostly pen and ink drawing but without it, it was just a lot of white face with little dimension to it. 

Portraits: Mom and Dad

 I was inspired after talking to my friend Mike after he did a portrait of his father a while back. Both my parents are in poor health and I decided that if I didn't do portraits of them now I likely never would. 

My mom's portrait was the most difficult. Her poor health has changed her dramatically. I took some reference photos while visiting her last but I changed a lot for the portrait. I wanted to draw her recently but not emphasize her current state so much. It isn't who she is so I took some liberties and came through with something those who know her would recognize as her. 

My father's portrait was easier, I took his photos the same day and while I did concentrate on his smile over his wrinkles, it's very much him all the way. I used a multi toned technique for his hair which I think worked out well.

I won't lie, these were emotionally hard to make and in a way that is why I did them. It hard to see them age and change and doing a portrait means looking at every detail and facing it. I got some really needed advice from (now New Mexico artist) Tobias Blaine Allen who really pointed me in the right direction with the shading in particular.  I drew these in a way that they could be put together as one image if I decide to print them like that. 

While I did most of the work in Procreate on the iPad, I did the shading and finish work in Affinity photo to take advantage of my 27 inch 5k screen. 

Illustration: Lick

 

I came across a photo I took of a friend licking a door... yes I have friends like that, apparently. The pose without the door seemed Robert maplethorpe like, a little too much maybe but I still thought it was an interesting project to take on. It didn't take long to accomplish, only about 5 hours total. There is no hair, hands, feet or other things that can take a long time to work out so it went quickly. Ears are always a challenge but this has only one so still not too bad. I certainly never thought a goofy photo I took in a hallway wold make an interesting illustration and I oddly forgot all about taking it or WHY I took it. The foods in the hat might be a little overdone and oversaturated but I still like it overall. 

Done in Krita.

Illustration: Fèlix (and latex Apple Pencil tips)

 

I bought some cheap latex nib covers for my Apple Pencil because I have had issues of the pen slipping on the glass and when I do stipple work it makes REALLY loud tapping noises. I had a textured glass protector on an earlier iPad and it felt great to draw on but noticeably affected the image colours on the screen and got marked up pretty quickly. I got 20 nib covers for 8$ Canadian so it wasn't a huge investment like buying the Paperlike screen cover is to me. 

Does it feel like drawing on paper? No, it does not. It does feel MUCH better than on the glass alone. I was surprised at how more control I had and how much more precise the stippling was. It might have a little too much resistance from some people but that didn't bother me. I will be curious to see how it works with a colour project. 20 for 8$ was a middle the road price. Some were much cheaper and some were more money. I am not sure there is any difference in quality though I could see there might be differences in resistance with different brands.

I haven't really drawn a young child before that I can remember. The lips were a challenge and the wispy hair. I think the white highlights help make it more 3 dimensional.

Illustration: Keamy (portrait)

 

This time a used Affinity Photo to draw another portrait of another friend. I was on the beach in Newburyport with him and took some personal photos under not great lighting conditions. A couple came out nice enough and a few more made me think they might be transformed into a portrait. I have been visiting a friend in hospital and was able to do a few hours of this there on the iPad. I had to play with the lighting and decide how much detail to include on the clothing. At one point I was thinking of just the floating face on the canvas. This was sort of a sneaky portrait since he didn't know (more did I) that is was going to do one. I would like to do more but I asked a number of friends a while back and they all refused. 

I did have some issues with palm rejection and the pencil switching from brush to eraser on its own. Procreate let you turn the device without it automatically changing orientation and Photo had issues with that as well. 

illustration: Dan portrait (Procreate)

I was little hesitant to post this since it will hopefully be sent as gift to the subject as a surprise but since he, like most people, never read my blog I decided to take the chance. Below is the detailed sketch I use as a guide when drawing, I like to have an overlay sketch to keep things from getting distorted and to remind me where details are. I am unsure how good the resemblance is. partly becuase its really hard to do that sometimes when you know the person really well, and we have been friends for many decades at this point. I also had to work from photos he has sent me since he moved to Orlando and they are great for me to look at but not always the best choice for a drawing. We are both avid cyclists so I wanted that represented. I think the strap might be changing the shape of his face enough that it's throwing the likeness off a little. I tinkered a lot with his expression which was slightly dour, in my opinion, and a slight smile is more "him". 

A second self portrait - sort-of

 I recently updated the design and re-arranged the stories in my first book of short stories. I cut one and added a new one and also added illustrations for those that didn't have them the first time out. The story "The Face in the Glass" was a head scratcher in terms of what sort of image to make and I ultimately deiced something "punk-ish" might be good. Originally I was going to do a mohawk only from the side. I decided instead to really simply and stylize a photo of me from the 80s. So not sure it counts as a real self portrait or not. I wasn't really going for resemblance as much as I was going for a certain look - much like I was going for for myself in that era! It would have been cool to colour the make-up but the book is printed in black & white so greyscale had to suffice. 

The book is for sale on Amazon as a printed book and a Kindle book.

The new price is 5.99$ (CAD) and the print version should be updated in the next few days, but the Kindle version is ready now. 

autoportrait 2021 - procreate ink

 

So this is something I have never done in my memory - drawn myself. I have drawn plenty of others and animals and places etc but never myself. 

Took a week doing it at night before bed. The reference is from a  series of photo self portraits, which is something I do reluctantly every few years but I wanted to do something different this time. 

It's pretty simple and basic. Stipple for the skin tones and lines for the rest. I did a little extra work in Affinity Photo because I usually add the title and my name there and noticed that the right cheek was a mess and needed more stipple work to blend it better. The is black fill with white stipple to give it some added detail. 

I avoid looking in mirrors so this was sort of weird, looking at my own face for hours. I think the beard came out well and the hair isn't bad and that is usually what throws me off the most. 

Franz Kafka portrait

 

Krita recently added a charcoal brush set to it's tools and I decided to go way out of my comfort zone and do an entire portrait with them and smudging tools. This took about 6 hours to do which is not long for me. I have been encouraged to "loosen up"  by a couple people and this time they were referring to my drawings and paintings. I am not sure if this qualifies as loose.... it was loose for me at least. 

I do have a think for Kafka, I even travelled to Prague to see his museum. there are not many photos of him and I chose a younger version of him as  reference. I sort of wanted to show him more as a young man and not a great writer of disturbing stories. 

I a not not sure I really got a good likeness. I wanted to change his expression from the stagnant, dour one to something more engaging to the viewer. Nothing extreme just a shift in focus. I played with the lighting too. I tried not to be too obsessed with the hair as I tend to want to draw each one in ink and pencil. 

The charcoals were hard to control which helped keep me from my habit of going into super small details. 

I have included the original photo for comparison, not that my sketch lives up to such scrutiny. 

Auto portraits 2017

So every ten or so years I do a profile portrait to embarrass myself. I guess it is good thing to do, especially now since I really don't get photograph people much anymore.

Since I had to set everything up in my studio, I took a variety of portraits, including some with "my hair up". It looks like this when I wake up so I'm sort of natural punk rocker. When I was younger it was more Ziggy Stardust-like, it just stood straight out (and was often orange, red, or... well name  a colour).

Since going to digital, the voice of doing colour or black and white can be put off until you are processing the photo instead of having to start off with that choice already made for the next 36 photos. I tend to go b&w in the end but here is a comparison of my choice with one of the photos.

I am actually always embarrassed by how I look and very private so it is always odd for me to put images of myself out there. I had to set up the backdrop and camera and be on my knees to keep in the frame for these so it felt a little silly. Luckily I have a remote to set off the shutter or I would have to set a time delay and run into position before it goes off! 

New portrait

Unlike some of the last few drawings (flickr page)  with people, this one is a real portrait, that is recognizable as a specific person. In this guess my boyfriend of 10 ten years, Robin.

I tried to mix several techniques to make a sort of hybrid of traditional and digital styles and I think it works out nicely. The face is painted in greyscale with a slight hue added to give it a skin tone and the rest is digital pen and pencil.

Drawing of Paul

Trying for a natural on paper look with digital tools. I really like the look of sketches on rough paper, especially when ink is combined with light and dark pencil to make it pop more. I find I use Sketchbook pro for almost all the drawing now and Photoshop for more of the effects work, not that some of it can't be done in Sketchbook but it's just easier and I think better implemented in Photoshop. The skin is almost all stipple work so this took quite some time to finish.

Click image for more detail if you wish.

New portrait

Once again digging into reference images I never got around to using. This time I've decided to try portraiture in pen and ink for the first time in a very long while. I've long been a fan of the stippling technique for skin tones in ink drawings... despite the fact it takes forever to accomplish. Thanks to Mike Luce for his feedback and critiques.

Séance de photo avec Marlene

Cette fin de semaine je pris les photos de notre ami Marlene. Il est long temps depuis j'ai fait les séances de photo, mais Il est allé très bien je pensent!