Portraits At The Pub 29: Jules

Jules (detail), Portraits At The Pub, Thin Tempera Paint Sticks, A3 Canson XL Watercolour Sketchbook.

I have drawn portraits of Jules a few times before in 2020 right before the Big P and after at the start of this year. Always a good model and this time I explored using the Paint Sticks a bit like I used to with Poscas in the life drawing days, this time with a thin version called Kwik Stix – still a US make but suspiciously similar to the Kingart ones, and unlike them actually available in the UK. I have been researching more local brands, like UK brands like Little Brian paint sticks , and sourcing those as my Kingart ones run out.

The colours are identical, as is the size and shape. I do suspect the Kingart ones are the same with their branding slapped on! Especially as they wouldn’t answer my questions about lightsafe/colour charts, which a manufacturer would know – so although they are owned by a US corp (same one that owns Sharpie, Parker, roTring, Waterman) I suspect these are actually Chinese made and the same.

Jules, Portraits At The Pub, Thin Tempera Paint Sticks, A4 Artway Flat White Sketchbook.

So we have a variety of portraits, two in the paint sticks like the quick loose cartoony one above with Jules wearing her glasses, and some ink paintings/drawings like the side profiles of Jules. They are very similar to one I did of her the first time but tis one I think is more successful – but apparently made her look like her mum! That happens a lot with portraiture, getting exact age is a bit hard, and you can get a family resemblance more easily.

Jules, Portraits At The Pub, Fountain Pen and wash, A4 Artway Flat White sketchbook.

Jules, Portraits At The Pub, Kuretake Brush pen and wash, A3 Canson XL Watercolour Sketchbook. — Jules, Portraits At The Pub, Fountain Pen and wash, A4 Artway Flat White sketchbook.

There’s also a very free brush painting? drawing? I did in the same pose as I finished the first one early. Unusually done on the large Canson XL paper – but that meant I could use the ink spread to speed things up.

And then given the finer paint sticks, I could try and do more detail, especially if I worked large. Hence the last paint stick piece, with which the face took a lot of time but I think I got a real mood and likeness, if not 100% Jules, she said it was more like her than the side profile above that looked like her mother. It’s really hard to work accurately with these, given the constraints and large chunky size even for the thin versions – so proud of this one. I did make the shoulders a little too long, hence the detail crop.

Working with something like this where you cannot really mix colours – even Posca can mix on the page – and dry in 60-90 seconds means a lot of colour theory and overlaying….it’s a bit like oil pastel in that regard, but oil pastel is opaque, unlike these which are more like inks in being 50% transparent.

Some are more transparent, some less. The neon and metallics tend to be more transparent than the basic colours – which has it’s uses for overlaying, although annoying when you want to go over a darker colour with a brighter one and can’t – why I tend to work up from the shadows rather than the reverse, being easier to see what you’re covering with darker shadows than not go over the lighter bits.