I’m really enjoying drawing portraits of my friends and my partner. I missed posting last week, so now I have two portraits to post.
Last week I did a second portrait of my partner, given that I wasn’t completely happy about the first one I made.
Steve
It’s hard to judge this portrait. It is more realistic in someway, but not the best likeness. I suppose the lesson I need to keep reinforcing is practice and keep doing it.
My second portrait of our friend has quite a few points of resemblance. She looks rather dour, but in reality it’s the downside of sketching people during a zoom meeting. Everyone is fairly intent on their screen which lends a seriousness to their face, which doesn’t necessarily reflect their personality.
I particularly enjoy using multiple colours of pencil to develop the darker tones. As we made our own selection of these pencils, we don’t have all the standard colours. This is way more interesting I think.
This is my last sketch of 2025 made on New Year’s eve while going for our ‘long’ walk around a nearby mountain.
I was using my regular tiny book I carry when walking and trying out an exercise from an artist I recently discovered called Orla Stevens *. The idea is to sketch for no more than 10 minutes changing the direction of your marks for each item you draw.
Tree with rocks
Now I know I haven’t nailed this yet, but I was really excited by her very loose approach to sketching. As this is one of our ‘regular’ walks I have drawn from this spot quite a few times already this year.
A broader view from the same location from July 2025, watercolour
I felt quite free to just go for it with this sketch. I certainly plan to do more in the future.
I’m keeping on with the exploration of tonal sketches started with my class with Olivia Marcus at the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Poznan. The more I explore, the more my own style preferences are entering the equation.
Sketching in the tiny book I carry on my walks.
One thing I have largely changed is not using black as an emphasis. Because I work predominantly in watercolour, I find the contrast between that and the black felt pen Olivia uses, can overwhelm my sketches. I’m exploring whether I can effectively substitute darker tones.
Sketching at Fyshwick Markets
I’m also testing out all different colour combinations. Some are instantly more appealing, but I don’t want to come to conclusions too soon. As I have a whole lot of new paints from our goody bags from Poznan, there’s still a lot to consider.
At Tutto in Mawson. I also added some pencil to this one to pick out more highlights.
I was doing a long overdue clean-up on the table today and found a small group of car sketches, mainly on the back of car parking tickets and also on a paper cutlery sleeve we got at a cafe.
Here they are, all stuck into my visual diary and also some closer views. Pencil and wax crayons.
This is not a question that I thought I would be asking, except that I recently read an article talking about the low lightfastness rating of many of my favourite Prismacolor pencils. Given how important I think lightfastness is for watercolours it’s somewhat strange that I haven’t considered this as an issue before.
All my Prismacolors
I had a hunt through my pencil box for my Prismacolors and checked them against the lightfastness chart that the company has released. I discovered that just over half of the colours that I own are in the top two lightfastness ratings categories. Phew! Those pencils I can continue to use without worry. The rest are in the bottom three categories. That means I wouldn’t use them for any work that I would be likely to sell, but I can use them on casual projects or for general ‘colouring in’ activities.
What I am confident to use long term.
Presently I am using my pencils to make colour interpretations of photographs of statues taken by the German artist Aglaia Konrad, in her book Schaubuch: Skulptur. (Yep, weird, but so me). As this is an exercise for me and all the drawings are in a sketchbook I will continue with using the lower rates colours, but I won’t replace them.
My colour pencil interpretation of an Aglaia Konrad photo of sculpture fragments in her book Schaubuch: Skulptur
As an aside, when I dived into the depths of the world of colour pencils (I don’t recommend it, it was terrifyingly obsessed), I found out that 4 of my pencils weren’t included on the lightfastness list. It turns out that they are considered ‘rare’ (sadly not rare enough to get me on Antiques Roadshow, or upgrade my lifestyle). They are discontinued colours from a previous incarnation of the company and were made in the late 1980’s. These colours were later discontinued when the company changed hands.
In the end my other half decided to get serious and order a set of lightfast Caran d’Ache Luminance 6901 pencils. I have swatched them out below and I am pleasantly surprised by some of the colours this set of 20 includes.
leonieandrews 