30 Faces in 30 Days: 16-20

 Vail, AZ

28 Jan, 2022

Day 16

Another pen and ink sketch using a lot of cross-hatching.  Not my favorite technique, mostly because I don't have a lot of patience to build up the tones bit by bit.  Several things have helped: 1) I have trouble keeping my strokes light and even when I change direction - so, instead, I often move my paper around (sometimes drawing upside down!) so that my pen strokes can stay the same, 2) using the finest nib pen I have (a micron 005 or .20mm) helps to keep the lines light, 3) remembering to hold the pen towards the back so that my grip is looser and the pen at a more acute angle to the paper.

I liked drawing this guy - I enjoy exploring wrinkles.

9x12 pen and ink

Day 17

A James Bond look-a-like!  Overall, working on toned paper is usually fun - but this turned out a little too dark for me.  I may go back and add in the white of his shirt and maybe some white behind the figure to brighten up this sketch.  I think the beard was pretty successful and I had fun with the glasses.

9x12 Graphite and White Charcoal on toned paper

Day 18

Yet another cute young woman!  I really prefer older muses.  I still am struggling to get a full range of values in my sketches.  I liked that I got a sense of the volume of her hair while keeping it soft.

9x12 Graphite

Day 19

This felt more like an illustration than a normal portrait; I really had fun with the wisps of hair around her face and in trying to capture the fullness and curliness of her upswept hair without getting too wrapped up in details.  The ink splatter for texture was fun to do - but, I haven't done this technique in a long time and forgot how delicately one needs to proceed.  I got way too much ink on the toothbrush and so the resulting splatters were very much fatter than I had intended.  Also, they took forever to dry!  I had to wait several hours after the splattering before I could finish the sketch without smudging.

9x12 Ink (and Ink Splatter for texture)

Day 20

9x12 Graphite