Pencil Sketch for Week 2 of the Course

Day One Hundred and Twenty-Two of Sketching People

Continuing on with day 122 of my #Kick365 sketching challenge to draw people in ink and watercolour. As well as doing biro portrait sketches for Dyan Sara’s Expressive Portraits Course, I’ve also been working my way through his Facial Features Course.

Facial Features Class

My purpose for doing this facial features class is to get quicker at simplifying features. I also want to practice how to really see the relationships between facial elements, and be able to identify angles and perspectives more intuitively. Last week we were focused on sketching the Eye, and this week we’ve been practicing noses. These have always been a facial feature I’ve struggled with.

Facial Features Class – Noses

Noses call for subtlety in tonal variation, as there’s actually not a lot of high contrast areas, except dark for the nostrils and highlight areas because of the light source. Dylan hosted a class using different photo references to practice drawing a nose from different angles using a fineliner pen and cross hatching for tonal shading.

I’ve got a bunch of sketch books I use to practice facial features, and collect different references and notes about sketching the nose, and here’s some of my pages from those books.

In these pages it’s all about simplification, and reducing the nose down to a simple series of lines, and using only three levels of tone – light, medium, and dark.

In this facial features course we’ve been sketching in fineliner and using cross hatching, and doing a full portrait each week in pencil, but when I’m urban sketching people I need to simplify the features as much as possible down to simple lines, and using watercolour for tonal shading. I did wonder if these two portrait classes I’m doing were a good investment of my time, because the styles and techniques I’m using in the classes is very different from what I plan on using on a daily basis. But this portrait practice is great from learning the nuances of simplification and tonal values, and these skills and techniques are applicable for sketching people on a smaller scale.

Facial Features Class – Week 2 Portrait

At the end of each week, we’ve been doing full portraits. It’s an opportunity to practice all of the features, and not just the feature we’ve been focusing on for the week. I used a copper coloured pencil, and I enjoyed the subtle variations in tonal values that can be achieved with a pencil vs. my usual fountain pen. I used a little bit of cross hatching, and also some tonal shading.

When you’re using pencil, it’s easy to create a strong focal point, by restating a few lines to create darker areas to draw your attention to them. In this sketch the dark areas and areas of highest contrast are the whites of the eyes and the dark of the eye lids and pupils.

The next class is focused on the lips, and I also have some more biro sketching exercises to do for the Expressive portraits course, because next week we’re moving onto broad nib pens.

Biro Sketch Portrait PRACTICE

During the week I’ve also been doing some biro sketching portrait practice for Dylan’s Expressive Portraits Course. One of the references is from his course, and the other is from a photo of Anthony Bourdain.