Some portrait work

Once I had drawn the logo for Pangothica I was so fired up to draw something else that I jumped on it straight away! I started doing some portraits. Actually, this started with drawing a friend’s dogs for her birthday. Two miniature schnauzers taken from separate photographs and made into one picture. this was the finished result, and a gift that was happily received:

 

This spurred me on to find other things that I could turn my hand to. Gem, in fact, asked me if I could draw her favourite musician (Mr Steve Hogarth from Marillion) and handed me a photo which was quite difficult to draw. Major facial expression going on and lots of passion in the photo. I gave it a go and despite some issues with the technicalities I came up with this which I was very pleased with I think it captured the emotion of his singing very well, personally so I shared it on the fan page to a positive audience for the most part…

I moved onto another picture of him which was not so successful and looks a it like him and a bit like Alice Cooper, though still not bad considering it was only my second ever portrait. I shared it again, this time to a more lukewarm reception, but hey, I’m still learning!

Basically I think this one is overworked and I was using pencil and biro together to draw and the overall effect is a little bit dark. I decided to do another one in biro and pencil, still only my third ever portrait! This time of Mr Steve Rothery, the guitarist from Marillion and all round brilliant Rock God (And a thoroughly nice chap, I met him in a church in Oxford at the Christmas gig of the aforementioned Steve Hogarth!). This one came out MUCH softer and a much better likeness of the man himself. Again shared to the fan site and this time to a better reception.

I did a lot more work in pencil which worked better for tone and shading and then added in accents of biro for depth and to pick out the darker elements.  This had an overall better effect than over-using the biro and I was much more pleased with the result. I was finding my feet at last with the drawing malarky and was loving every minute of it!

I was sussing out how to do this portrait thing at last and discovering something about the way I work that I had not thought much about before. I actually much prefer to draw using subjects that are actually doing something. Incidental poses rather than contrived ones. Action shots, if you will. I really prefer my subjects to be caught in a moment in time rather than posing for the camera, unless of course they have an unusual expression or are pulling a face.

My training in hypnotherapy and NLP comes in here I think. One of the subjects that I have studied at some length is “micro facial expressions”. Have you ever seen the TV series ‘Lie to Me’? with Tim Roth? Well… That. How the face betrays a feeling in a fleeting moment in time, how we express our innermost feelings in that millisecond that sometimes people are lucky enough to catch on camera. So to me a face with expression is FAR more interesting and also difficult to draw. I do like some posed photos but they ave to be interesting not just gazing at the camera… In this last of the set of drawings, I actually sold the final piece… here:

I am waiting for the framing to be done and then I will post a picture of the finished product!

I will leave you with a poem about a lethal addiction….

“A Cautionary Tale…”

It’s a terrible tale 
I’m going to tell 
‘bout an aspiring young writer 
Who started to swell… 
It started on Thursday, 
At just about noon, 
Her face went all round 
Like a full, silver moon 
By lunch time on Friday, 
Her cranium inflated 
Her chin couldn’t take it 
Her jaw dislocated 
Into the weekend 
The swelling continued 
Puffing up ligaments 
Tendons and sinews. 
The spherical authoress 
Was more than bemused 
(once pretty and slender, 
Her ego was bruised) 
The doctors were baffled, 
Experts confused;
Test after test… 
“What’s behind this?” They mused. 

Several days later 
Our tale takes a twist, 
Our beach-ball –like heroine 
Rolled over her wrist 
She punctured her forearm 
And out shot some ink 
The cause of the swelling 
Was her favourite drink! 
What had started off as 
An innocent nibble 
Idle chewing of pens whilst 
She thought what to scribble… 
Developed and grew into 
Quite an affliction 
As she succumbed to 
A full blown addiction 

Nightly in private 
She’d been sneaking around 
Supping on biros and 
Pens that she found. 
The result was: Disaster! 
A sticky ink river 
Her kidneys were inkwells 
Pools of gloop in her liver. 
Her tummy was bloated 
with chewed fibre tips 
Remains of a fountain pen 
Staining her lips 

Sadly for our comrade 
There’s never a return 
Once you’ve swallowed a pen, 
Your insides will burn… 
the addiction takes over, 
Like a wild forest fire;
Only the inkiest tidal waves 
Will quench your desire!
Your resolve will soon waver, 
You’ll be swallowed whole, 
Soon guzzling ink 
Becomes your only goal… 
Of course, the outcome 
Of this tale is tragic, 
No happily ever after 
Nor fairy tale magic… 
She lay on the floor 
And gasped her last breath 
And in full technicolour 
She waited for death.

‘Til Next Time…… Over & Out!