Charcoal Portrait Drawing Young Girl - How to Loosen Up Your Drawing!

If you want to loosen up your drawing, I would highly recommend vine charcoal and a reckless disregard for detail when you begin - as you proceed you can tighten up some areas (which is kind of necessary for portraiture) so the person is recognizable but try to see in masses of light and shadow, look for shapes, not features.

Charcoal Sketches from Life with Academy of Realist Art

 I recently had a fun experience doing charcoal sketches from life in the booth for The Academy of Realist Art during a street festival in the Junction, Toronto, Ontario.

I managed to get a photo of two of my subjects. These are quick sketches done in 20-30 minutes and the most important thing is to make people recognizable. I love doing these, it is fun to capture people and make them happy while offering something anyone can afford.

Being the perfectionist that I am, I always feel a little frustrated I do not have more time to refine the work but I am happy to get the chance to work from life.

One of these was done after the fact from a photo due to the subject being to little to hold a pose. For this sort of event, that is always an alternative! I may have spent a little more time on it.....

Working in Academy of Realist Art Booth during Junction Street Fair

The Daily Painting Habit: Day 21 of 21 - Charcoal Portrait Sketch #2

Connor

This will be charcoal portrait sketch #2 for 2017 and officially the end of my 21-day challenge (mostly painting and some drawing) that took WAY longer.

I am astonished that artists consistently do these 30-day challenges every six months (usually led by Leslie Saeta) and keep up! It is just not in my DNA to pronounce anything finished until I am happy with it and that often takes some time. I am okay with that.

That doesn't mean I will stop doing these small paintings and sketches. I strongly believe that creating on a daily basis is great for artistic growth, so my plan is to be in the studio on a daily basis, whether that is to create a small sketch or painting or working on larger pieces.

This drawing was a challenge due to most of the face being in shadow.

You always have to subdue everything in the shadows no matter how bright it seems when you look at that area, so I darkened the white of his eye in shadow more than I initially thought it should be. Black in light is lighter than white in shadow. There is a definite distinction between light and shadow and values do are not shared on either side!

When I was doing this, I thought of Sargent's charcoal portrait drawings that I have had the pleasure of viewing. A lot of them have a dark mass behind the light side of the face. I think it lends some drama.

In retrospect, I think I should have done this on toned paper with white chalk highlights - hey, maybe I will still do that!

The Daily Painting Habit: Day 20 of 21 - Charcoal Portrait Sketch

Austin with Shouldice

So, I am back, finally. Despite my lack of posting, I have been producing some work, including a lot of preparatory stuff for some large pieces I am planning.

Over the past few months, life has gotten in the way of art a bit. I have been dealing with a few ongoing health challenges that have prevented me from doing as much as I would have liked. I might write more about that at another time, or maybe not - we are all dealing with one thing or another and I don't want to be a bore.

For now, here is my latest work of art, a charcoal sketch. Charcoal is a rather messy medium and not for those who want a lot of control but it is also fun and easy to manipulate for a painterly, massed in type of drawing.