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Sept/Oct Update and the Queen RIP

The latest update will be a bit different – less about raw data (there isn’t much) and more about the process over the last month or so and some things I learnt.

The beginning – Cats

September started with a renewed ambition to refocus on drawing cats. I want to illustrate cats but I needed to learn to illustrate cats first. That was the hard part as there isn’t actually much I found that helpful online about it. I have a book on how to draw cats but it is a bit “do as I do” where it just gives you various images, and tells you to copy them. I wanted to be able to break down a cat the same way that you can with a human head and body. There wasn’t much so began that myself and did two days. Then the Queen died.

The Queen

I’m not a royalist or monarchist but then again I’m not a republican either. I’m kind of indifferent to the Royal Family as a whole. I see them as part of the British furniture like London Bridge or something that we all pay for to upkeep but they are part of the history and tradition of this island so worth it. I liked the Queen and was genuinely sad when the announcement came through. But I do think that is because the Queen reminded me a lot of my Mother and my Mother ADORED the Queen.

Despite my Mother loving the Queen, she doesn’t have any images of her around her little flat. So the thought popped into my head – draw the Queen and if it is good enough I’ll give it to my Mother. It is also the first time this year I’ll be drawing a recognisable person which appealed to me as a challenge.

The gallery shows the various attempts: two reference images and four attempts.

The first two were just awful but I’d not drawn a face in a while so its ok to be a bit rusty. The third was just a total waste of time. But the final one was an eye opener on many levels.

I started this as a pencil drawing and only intended it to be a pencil drawing. The first two sessions – 26 and 28 September were in total 63 mins, and it was only getting the various proportions right. The biggest difficulty was from eyes down to chin and I just coulldn’t get it to look like the reference photo and mine just had a chin that was too small and jutted out well beyond the nose. Eventually I just got a ruler and used that to find the reference points. From the eyes down it is now ok but the forehead feels a little long.

The next session was all about the various lines – wrinkles and hair really but also the teeth and not making them fangs. Teeth are not easy to draw. I spent a while on those and they STILL look weird. Its no wonder artists on the Portrait Artist of the Year avoid teeth! During this sessions I also looked to add mid-tones. I used a HB pencil and my finger to get a mid-tone all over to move away from the bright white of the paper.

After those mid-tones, I then layered on the darker tones. I was determined to try and get some decent texture in via shading, especially around the wrinkles and planes of the face. I was not successful. I just couldn’t get a dark tone without using charcoal which created that wierd mottling effect. By that stage, I was in the zone of “f*** it I’m done”, thoroughly exasperated with the whole drawing. I sprayed over the hairspray to fix it and then stepped back. I realised the use of the charcoal effectively washed out the rest of the face. What I needed to do was darkened the various parts of her face to match the black and then I think it would have ended up being a stronger drawing.

The lessons

There were a number of observations as I tried to draw the Queen:

• Drawing a well known face really forces you to try and see what makes that face recognisable. You know instinctively when something doesn’t look right but trying to break that down why, is a really good learning experience.
• Doing a drawing with a purpose (for me, the gift for Mother) was powerful as a motivator.
• Having the drawing open on the drawing desk (which is now behind me) meant that when I wanted to be distracted from work-work, I was able to pick up the pencil and draw.
• By not being bold with the darker tones for fear of wrecking the drawing, I wrecked the drawing by not being bold.
• Doing mid-tones on white paper is a very useful exercise.
• Its ok to re-draw the same reference image.
• Doing detail with charcoal is super tough and it may take a long while to even achieve a basic drawing.

Actually that last point is one I knew before! So what does this mean going forward? Well I think more project based drawing may be a better way forward or at the very least sits alongside the other more skills based learning. Maybe I’ll take a step back and re-start the heads as I still have a load from the 100 heads portfolio that I’ve not drawn. I think I need to go back and re-learn blocking in for faces: just knowing where the face furniture is, is just the first step. The second step is then to see the differences that give us all a unique face.

I’ve not done any drawing since I finished that picture of the Queen (which isn’t good enough to give to my Mother) but there is still plenty of this month left.