Few more portraits

Here are few more portraits. I have realized that live portraits done in 15 minutes are significantly more satisfying than those painstakingly created based on photographs - especially if the model looks like the portrait!

Some portraits/sketches for a change! (Pencil)

Outdoor Finally

Finally I joined a group where I can spend the weekends painting outdoors. I have been painting based on photographs and the shift to plein air is a big change. I spent yesterday session mainly in sketching. At the end of the session we were lucky to have a 90 year old man agreeing to pose as a model for portrait. Here is the portrait I made with pencil originally - added a dash of color later on to give it the real personality of the old man!!

My grandmother..

one more portrait in pencil

Some portraits in Pencil

While I do not have enough time for water colors, I am utilizing the available time making portraits. Here are some recent ones.

Concentration (portrait)

After ages I made a pencil portrait. This is a good friend attending a lecture with full concentration. It was great working with my old partners 2B, 4B and 6B.

Portraits and structures

Last few days I am working on painting structures and portraits. Haven't tried both these before in watercolours. Long time ago, I used to make portraits with pencils but doing them with paint is a very different experience. Here is one of the initial attempts. As of now focussing on the painting technique (wet on wet, wet on dry etc) rather than accuracy and likeness with the subject. Progress will be possible with practice only and practice is what gets documented here. So here it is. The first step. Hope to see improvement in next few months. Suggestions most welcome!

Back to old habits

I used to make portraits from celebrity photographs. With lot of patience and some skill, I was able to copy number of photographs in pencil drawing. But I never seriously practised any drawing techniques. I did not take any training either. So for many years this was the only thing I could do in the art world. Each portrait used to take around 6 to 8 hours (some up to 20 hours) and I had to use as much eraser as pencils. I used to work sq. inch to sq. inch and complete the picture. Since I have now been practising for last 3 months, I thought let me see whether I can do the copy stuff any faster. And this picture was born in around 25 minutes. Though it is not a perfect copy, I feel I was able to catch the essence of the photograph (the meditative concentration) quite ok. What do you think?

Portrait by accident (Pencil drawing)

Originally I was just planning a quick sketch. After drawing the contours of the face and hand I realized that the sketch was too big for the small (and cheap) pad I was using. So I decided to draw the face also. I was not expecting much from this (and especially given half my attention was on TV). But to my own surprise, not only the features but also the expression on face turned out to be quite accurate. This is what I call luck! I hope with more and more practice, the odds improve further.

Reading Face (Pencil Drawing)

Face of a woman reading seriously!

Quick portrait (Pencil Drawing)

I went to Mahabaleshwar with a group of friends. It was raining heavily and it was very cold in the morning. While we were chatting before the breakfast, I was sketching the people around. The senior-most member of our group (Age 75) was sitting next to me. His head was covered with a scarf, which I could not resist drawing. The time was short since he did not know that I am sketching him. So this was done real quick, less than 5/7 minutes I think. I again drew the contour first and then the details inside. This approach is helping in improving the proportions.

One more portrait (Pencil Drawing)

This portrait took around 45 minutes to complete. The hair cut and light eyes proved quite difficult. Since the light came from a large window on his left, his right eye was looking little darker than the left one (I have perhaps overdone it here!). The shading in the ear could have been lighter than here (I realised it after publishing the image here). In the end I was quite satisfied with my effort.

A new portrait, finally! (Pencil Drawing)

Here is a decent portrait attempt worth putting here. This was done yesterday night and took around an hour. The girl, was very very helpful, in spite of a bad cold and running nose, which troubled her throughout the hour.

Portraits (Pencil drawing)

In my college days I used to draw portraits based on photographs. Nowadays I am trying to draw portraits with my wife or daughter as models. I am finding the going pretty tough but haven't given up yet. I hope to make something worth posting here by end of this week. In the meanwhile, I am posting here 2 portraits made by me 20 years ago. That of Ms. Thatcher is based on a photograph in Readers' Digest and the one of JFK is based on the cover of SPAN if I remember right. I am also posting a recent one of my daughter, made in 2004, again based on a photograph. Keep checking this space for some new ones.

A quick portrait

Cannot expect my daughter to sit still for more than 15 minutes, she is just 9! So I had to make this one quickly, in 10 minutes flat. She feels this could have been much better!!