Charcoal Portrait Sketch on White Paper - Demonstration

12" x 9" Charcoal on Paper

This is a sketch from life I made at the weekly drawing sessions a few months ago. During breaks, or whenever I came to a point in the sketching process that seemed about right, I took photos of the sketch's progress. Later the photos were put together into a slide show video so anyone can see how I do a portrait sketch from life. Or at least how I did it that evening. Here's the video:

You can go directly to YouTube and watch the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw2uOMQbUN8

Or if you prefer Vimeo, you can watch it here:
http://vimeo.com/86560638

The video starts out showing how I begin by rubbing the side of a charcoal stick over the entire sheet of white paper. Then the charcoal is gently blended using one of those stiff paper towels you get from the paper towel dispensers in public restrooms. The sketch starts out with general shapes and without details so it goes through a sort of "ugly duckling" phase. Details and drawing corrections develop throughout the drawing process, but the large shapes need to be pretty darn close at the outset or no amount of details later will fix it. Except for a few touch-ups after time was up, the image at the top of this post shows my sketch at the end of that evening's drawing session.

Hope you enjoy the video!

For more about drawing sessions, go to "Labels" on the side bar and click on "sketching" or "drawing."