Portraits At The Pub 37: Ian

Ian (detail) - Portraits At The Pub, Paintsticks and sgraffito, A3 Canson XL.

I’ve been a bit slow posting work – this is the portraits session from over two weeks ago..a lot has happened since then! Unusually I only did four or five pieces – I think there is one I banned from posting, but all pretty good. Particularly like the Van Gogh style paintstick piece – it’s the hat, it totally gave me French provence or Depression farmer vibes. I think his blue eyes come out here, they are more blue-gray but quite noticeable.

Ian, Portraits At The Pub, Fountain Pen and wash, A4 35% cotton Sketchbook.

First is a fountain pen piece – profiles, I am always good at profiles – been really try to focus on my proportion, I felt that was slipping – and even shock horror – measure some of them to check. I tend to just draw, there isn’t time for much planning or thinking in a 20-25 minute session. Good mix of fluid and detail in this – good likeness mostly, and a good feeling of mood. It’s highly possible to paint a portrait and not get a sense of a person, to be too wrapped up in technicalities to not express who they are or a feeling. I definitely don’t do that.

Then some Lyra graphite – a mix of watersoluble sticks and the traditional. The ‘hero’ profile piece which I like how I left the white to focus on the face, also gives me grizzled Depression-era vibes. Enjoyed the swooping curves of this one. The second is gentler and more of a better likeness.

Ian, Portraits At The Pub, Lyra Graphite, A4 Flat Wnite Sketchbook.

My favourite apart from the first profile is this large paintstick piece. I’ve done less paintstick work recently partly because of the utter failure of them working for the cliff pieces (bar one at Cerne Abbas) – I lugged them around and only did two pieces on Jaunt 3. I will explain more in the up-coming blog posts about those trips – but I felt they didn’t really work for that added weight.

Ian, Portraits At The Pub, Paintsticks and sgraffito, A3 Canson XL.

But for portraits – totally worth taking along! Here I was experimenting with layering them to get darker shades – ran out of time otherwise I’d have darkened it further, but always find overlaying pink and green interesting. He actually had a dark gray t-shirt on! Not totally sure the hand is right, again, I probably should leave those but then again, I need to practice this stuff.