Old Work

As I said before, a year or so ago I used to do quite a lot of drawing, and below are a couple of my favourite examples. Perhaps they are not 100% photo-realistic just yet, but that's what I intend to improve on. 

African Child

The most recent drawing that I completed over the summer of 2010. It is of an African child that my brother befriended whilst on a three-month visit to Ghana. When he brought back an amazing portrait portrait photograph of the child I just had to draw it. I apologise for the poor quality of the picture, it is only a photograph I took of the drawing under bad light. 

I was really pleased with this drawing, I think it took me just over four weeks to complete it; however, I don't think my rendering of the texture on his shirt are not too good - something I seem to remember always struggling with. Having said that, I think it is definitely possible to see an improved tonal and textural quality in the rendering of the face compared with the below drawing (an earlier piece). Something I found with drawing is that you literally get better every time.

James Battye

This is an older drawing, completed in either late 2009 or early 2010. It is from a photograph I took of my friend James when on a visit to Beijing in April 2009. Again, it is quite a bad quality photograph, apologies. 

I was very pleased with the tonal qualities on the face in this drawing, however, again the rendering on the shirt is not particularly good. 

I plan to start a new drawing very soon, so hopefully I will have some fresh material to post in the near future.

S

Back to the Drawing Board

This is a new blog I have created based purely on graphite pencil portraits which I produce in my spare time outside of University work. It will act as an online sketch book of sorts. 

I studied Fine Art at GCSE (achieving an A* grade) and at AS level. My interest within art's many genres has always been photorealism, and my most successful pieces were always graphite pencil portraits; I think it holds the most integrity and skill-level to produce something by hand which can look so real and tangible. No ambiguities. No hidden agendas. No paint sneezed on to a canvas and sold for millions of pounds. 

Perhaps my interest in photo-realistic artwork is why my creative curiosity has deviated to photography of late - I am currently studying Press & Editorial Photography at University College Falmouth, Cornwall - however, after almost a year of  drawing sobriety, I have felt my sketching hand twitching, and the urge to once again put graphite to paper has arisen. 

This is where I will be sharing my work, and hopefully there will be a lot of it. Obviously my university assignments come first, but over the coming months I plan to start a few new personal drawing projects. Life in Graphite - watch this space.

S