Portraits, portraits and yet more portraits

I've been on a portrait binge. Painting them that is.

This all started during the last week of Sketchbook Skool when students started doing portraits of the Fakulty members, and Tommy Kane in particular. Tommy became so enamoured of our efforts he asked us to send the portraits to him - he had an idea for a new book. The trickle of "Tommy" faces became a flood. The link above is to Tommy's marvellous book - but more about that in another post.

Here is my first - a portrait using the humble Bic ballpoint pen with a wash of watercolour. I took at screenshot of one of Tommy's videos. He's standing outside Muscle Park.

Tommy Kane - Bic pen and watercolour on watercolour paper

Then I decided to do another one, this time I used Tommy's Facebook profile photo. This one is also done using the black Bic.

Tommy Kane Bic pen on A4 Hanemuhle paper

These first two drawings  were done slowly, building up the values gradually. Over the past weeks I've been working on a portrait commission - a family of four: Mum, Dad and the two children.
It's been slower than I would like but the light at the end of the tunnel is shining brighter and I'm almost done.  I wanted to paint a portrait in a faster more spontaneous way. I decided to use a limited palette of Schmincke gouache which was a recent purchase. 

So who would be my subject?

While watching another video, this time Danny Gregory talking about Sketchbook Skool - I took another screen shot - Danny's expressive features made him the ideal portrait subject. I painted this in a Fabriano Venezia sketchbook.

 Danny Gregory - gouache in A4 Fabriano Venezia sketchbook

Happy with the result I wondered - who should be next?

Aha Jean-Christophe Defline! 
He's a fellow klassmate and very talented artist - check out his work in his blog here... It's a good thing he loves pink!

Jean-Christophe Delfine - gouache in Fabriano Venezia sketchbook

Now on a roll, I found a photo of the beautiful and talented Elsbeth McLeod,also a klassmate. Please have a look at her excellent portrait of Tommy on her blog here.

Elsbeth McLeod - gouache in A4 Fabriano Venezia sketchbook

These portraits were done relatively quicky. I didn't make note of the time but I would say they each took a couple of hours at the most. The difference with these portraits is that there were no big expectations. I didn't have anything to prove, I could just have fun trying to capture the essence of these wonderful people. 

Tomorrow it's back to complete my family portrait. 

Sketchbook Skool

For many years now I have had sketchbooks. Previously the ritual of drawing daily was really only adhered to if I was away on holiday. I have a number of these and they are in effect travel journals, a wonderful reminder of great holidays.

At home in the studio, my sketchbooks had became messy work books, filled with rough sketches, measurements of planned paintings and the odd written note. I seldom dated anything and wish now that I had coupled the drawings with more written annotations to record more of my thinking or at the very least added the date.

These days, although I am a working artist, I had forgotten how much pleasure there is in daily drawing. I had forgotten the ritual of meditative sketching; of experimentation and discovery; the pleasure of filling a book with your images, thoughts and ideas. I like the idea of working through my creativity in both words and images, with each enhancing and enriching the other.

The Living Room ink and watercolour Zeta Sketchbook

  © 2014 Carol Lee Beckx

 

At the beginning of April I enrolled for an online course, my first ever. The first six week semester of Sketchbook Skool has been something of a revelation to me. The online camaraderie that has developed through posting ones sketches, seeing other people's work and giving and receiving comments has been so rewarding. I filled an A5 Fabriano Venezia sketchbook during the course, as well as using a number of pages in other sketchbooks.

I have started to post the drawings on my Flickr page as a separate gallery - SketchbookSkool. 

At the end of the course I made a few notes (the notes became an essay) and posted this on the group's Facebook page. Danny Gregory, who initiated the course together with Koosje Koene, asked if he could quote me. He posted my thoughts on his blog -The six weeks that changed my life. 

The second semester starts on July 4th. To cater for the tremendous interest in this course the first semester will run again also starting on July 4^th.

If you would like to learn how to make daily drawing and keeping a sketchbook part of your life then do yourself a favour and enroll.

Click here for more information about the course.