“The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.”
Portraits are difficult.
So much more difficult than doing landscapes or still life.
You are depending on someone sitting still enough to let you capture their likeness. You are depending on them not to feel so embarrassed that they will duck their heads and shy away from you the moment they realise you are focussing on them. You are depending on your own skill in making sure that the picture you are working on does end up looking at least like a human being, and not like some weird alien humanoid. And you know that after you finish, even if the drawing is sh*t, you still have to show it to the sitter as they’ve granted you the favour of their time and presence.
So.
If I can, I would try to be very surreptitious about sketching people. All the better if they don’t notice what I am doing.
The sketch above was done while at work. I was running a little art group for my patients, and this lady happened to sit directly in front of me. She was quite unaware that I had started to draw her, but when she found out, she was quite happy for me to proceed. And it turned out to be quite a good likeness. She was so pleased with it that she wanted a copy laminated for her daughter.
Most people are too shy to allow themselves to be drawn, but not the Governor of Queensland, His Excellency Paul de Jersey AC. I was visiting Parliament House on its Open Day as part of an urban sketching trip and had just set up my little camp stool when this elderly gent in an Akubra hat plopped himself down in front of me and said I could draw him. I was a little astonished as I don’t usually get volunteers for portrait sketches but what the heck, I will nab every opportunity I can get. The result is in the gallery below. I only found out who it was much later and luckily was able to run back to him for an autograph on his sketched portrait!
I always like to start with the outlines and contours of the hair. Then, I work down towards the shape of the nose and face. If I can get the profile of the cheekbones, jawbones, brow shape and nose shape, and any significant facial lines in, then I can almost be assured that I will get a reasonably good likeness. I was using my favourite Montblanc broad-nibbed fountain pen, with Platinum black ink as usual.
This is my favourite drawing tool.
It’s a fabulous pen and has a nib as smooth as butter. Just as well it was a wedding present from OH’s uncle and aunt. I would never have been able to bring myself to buy such a pen.
What Think You I Take My Pen In Hand?
What think you I take my pen in hand to record?
The battle-ship, perfect-model'd, majestic, that I saw pass the
offing to-day under full sail?
The splendors of the past day? Or the splendor of the night that
envelopes me?
Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me?--
No;
But I record of two simple men I saw to-day, on the pier, in the
midst of the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends;
The one to remain hung on the other's neck, and passionately kiss'd
him,
While the one to depart, tightly prest the one to remain in his arms.