James18 x 24 pastel pencil on toned paper
Have drawn this model a couple times in other sessions. Flowing salt and pepper hair and beard with strong facial planes make for a great evening of drawing. The model was sitting with his right arm resting on top of the back of his chair. Took a position to do a profile portrait. Liked the composition with his arm in view.
Yuri has been talking with me about not drawing so small and using the full paper. He said there is a perfect size for every image (or canvas) and you can see when it fits its space perfectly, so made a conscious decision to draw this portrait bigger setting the outside envelope closer the the edges than I have in the past.
After establishing my placement, started building the big shapes – face, hair, beard, arm – then moved to find the facial landmarks – forehead, brow, eyes, nose, mouth, chin – checking and correcting the proportions. As I added shadows, a nice likeness emerged on the paper. The rest of the session was spent refining and finishing.
Yuri came by at the end of the evening and suggested the head might be too big. He took his hand and spread his palm in front of his face. “The face should be no larger than your hand.” Told Yuri I learned that from Ed Sprafkin and spread my hand in front of the image to show him it was in fact the same size. Think the foreshortened arm, shoulder length hair, and beard give the impression the face is larger than life.
Yuri took his dark pastel stick and followed my line on the forehead profile saying it was an important line and needed to be accentuated. He also said no two shadows are alike, and lightly touched my facial shadows with the side of his dark stick. Using the side of a crayon to shade creates subtle differences as opposed to shading and blending; a valuable lesson here.
Pleased with the drawing. The model liked it as well and took a photo.
2 hours.
Progress not perfection.
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