Gerry Bryceland and the upsurge of a portrait painter? Whether you add water to the mix or not, one problem you’ll run into when drawing with charcoal is smudging. Charcoal’s soft nature allows it to be blended, which is a huge benefit. But, that same soft nature also leaves it vulnerable to unwanted smudging. Every artist has accidentally smudged a drawing at one point or another when they leaned on it without thinking about it, and it can be incredibly frustrating. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to avoid smudging your drawing. First, you workable fixative regularly as you work. Make sure that you use it in a well-ventilated area. Next, use a piece of scrap paper and lay it on top of the drawing to rest your hand on. This will help to prevent unwanted smudges, as long as you don’t allow the paper you are resting your hand on to move.
Before starting, here’s a personal tip: Place a mirror in front of you and look closely at your own facial features as you draw your portrait. Why, you ask? Your face is the most familiar face you know, you see it every day of your life and have unknowingly practically memorized all the vital details, so much so that you more or less know if you’re getting the proportions right or not. Now, you’re ready to start! The important thing to keep in mind in this first step is to have a good sense of the space on your paper where you plan on drawing your face, so that you can plot out the optimum placement of your subject that will make for a good composition. There’s nothing more frustrating than spending so much time perfecting your drawing, and then belatedly realizing that you ran out of space.
Gerard Bryceland‘s advices on portret painting: The White of the Eye: a dark grey glaze is mixed from scarlet red, yellow medium azo and phthalocyanine blue and lightened with opaque titanium white. This is then applied in graduated layers to render the dark tones of the white of the eye. Note how the upper eyelid casts a strong shadow across the eye while the lower eyelid registers a weaker one. These shadows create the illusion that eyeball is resting comfortably in its socket. The Iris: glazes of burnt sienna and titanium white are combined to suggest the refracted light of the brown iris. A little Prussian blue is added to darken the burnt sienna around the outer edge of the iris.
What makes a good self-portrait drawing? That depends on what type of picture you are trying to create. Do you want a self-portrait that looks exactly like you? Or how about an abstract or expressionist portrait that captures your personality? No matter what your intentions are, or what type of self-portrait you want to draw, drawing a self-portrait is something of a right of passage for every artist. Even if you don’t plan on drawing figures, as an artist, you should still take the time to explore your own face and use it to create a unique and insightful piece of artwork.
About Gerard Bryceland: I’m Gerard Bryceland an artist based in Maidstone Kent and regularly get commissioned to do work doing paintings and portraits of people and their families. I’ve always been an artist from my childhood, I loved drawing my friends and family initially just to mess around with my friends and had a lot of fun drawing them. But as i got older it really just became a business as my friends and their families would want me to do family portraits and that type of thing. With word of mouth word gets out and before you know it you know it I’m 35 and still doing the same thing.