Been a long time since I did a WIP thread. Let's do one.
This is a friend's son, and here's my initial sketch.

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I captured the likeness by doing a lot of measuring as I sketched. I measured the corners of the eyes and mouth, a few points on the nose, a few points on the ear, the location of the chin and hairline, the distance between the lips and between the eyelids.

Sorry for the horrendous quality -- it's a very light sketch!

Ernest - great start but I thought that his neck appeared a bit too thick and so I did another measure - the width of his neck is the same as the measurement from the hairline at his temple (my measurement line touched the bottom of his eye) to the edge of his nose. When I did the same with your sketch it is a bit too wide, I feel it makes him look like too chubby for the good looking lad that he is.

Sorry for being picky.

Not at all -- that's the main motivation for posting this, getting feedback. The hairline on the left side was too far to the right, and the neck was exactly the right width. I also realized while measuring this that I had drawn the exposed part of the neck way too long -- the collar comes up much higher in the photo. I've fixed the sketch. I'll post a photo of the revised sketch with the first layer of graphite a little later.

OK, here's with the first light layer of HB graphite (this is on Bristol smooth BTW). I just want to start mapping out the values, capturing relative light and dark -- although everything is much lighter than it will end up. I'm holding the pencil at about a 35 degree angle from the paper. I've ground the point down on a piece of sandpaper at this angle so there's a large flat surface, and I'm making light, ovalish movements about 1cm in length, sometimes smaller. In this first layer it looks very uneven, but as I add more layers it will get much smoother. I don't think I'm going to do any blending on this portrait.

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Again, I've darkened the photo somewhat so you can see.

More HB graphite. This photo is closer to the actual values, now that the drawing is getting darker.
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Now that I can see the basic likeness is there, I'm going to cover up the face with a piece of copy paper and do most of the work on the hair, darkening it all the way to the final values. That will provide a nice frame for doing more comprehensive work on the face.

About half the hair done with 2B graphite. I'll eventually make some parts of it even darker.
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Most of this is done with strokes that follow the hair growth, but there is some "scumbling" to darken the lighter parts of the hair.

Ernest this is starting to look good.
But I hope you want mind me saying this also about the neck I think it looks too thick because if you look at your photo he's neck comes in a bit from the jacket neck and you go right too the edge, may be bring the neck in a little? what do you think.

Hi Ernest! Looking as if it is coming along nicely! Have a beginner questions for your, can you explain "Scrubbing"? I looked in the lesson glossery and it was not mentioned so figured rather than looking it up on the net I would ask for the benifit of the other like myself just venturing in with pencil.

Thanks!
Doug

Thanks! The neck now actually measures exactly the right size, so maybe the jacket "material" is too thin?



"Scumbling" is a word that Ann Kullberg and some other colored-pencil people use to describe the "drawing ovals" thing I mention in my first post above. It's a kind of lazy man's circulism, where the circles are much bigger.

Here's where the drawing is now; I got into the zone and went a little too far between posts, I think. I finished the hair, then continued to refine the skin using the same technique, but with a 2B pencil. At this point it's starting to come together. I'll continue to make the darks darker in the next step, and then after that come back and do the detail work on the eyes and mouth. There's also a special thing I'm going to do in the background which I'll explain when we come to it!
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Wow! Looking good! You've done so much in such a very short period of time, well done!

Thanks Spuddy!

More darkening, and refining features. Those things that look like smudges are dirt on the window letting this sunlight in! Still no eyelashes.
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I love the hair Ernest this is coming on so well.

Thanks! I like hair that's blowing around -- it's a lot of fun to do.

Here's where I am now -- again, too long in between photos. I didn't keep time but I suspect there are about five hours in this piece so far, and it's nearly complete.
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A lot of small feature adjustments: the eyes and mouth, especially, but also shading on the nose. I twist a kneadable eraser or a piece of Blu-Tak to a sharp point, and dab at the drawing to remove tiny bits of graphite; then re-draw with appropriate pencils.

I added the eyelashes with a Wolf's carbon pencil, which makes them jet-black. I drew the coat collar with a Sanford Ebony pencil, which gives it a different texture, and then blended with a stump, so it looks nothing like the skin, which is all unblended.

I still have to draw a tiny suspension bridge in the background! It's in the reference photo off to the side (cropped away in the above.) I'm going to draw it much closer to the subject, as it sets the location for the photo.

Hi Ernest,
Nice portrait, your friend and his son will like your portrait.

lily

Now you have given the little guy some eyelashes he's looking good,
I still dont like doing eyelashes lol.

And... I think this is about it. There's a hazy background, and the bridge, and a signature, but otherwise I think that's all that's new.
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One thing that this portrait drives home for me is that I can do much better work with wood pencils than mechanical ones. Despite being comfortable and fun to use, the work I do with mechanical pencils just... sucks. I can't figure out why, except that perhaps the 0.5 and 0.7mm lead diameters are too small. Maybe this means I'd really like 2mm clutch pencils? Oh, darn, I might have to go buy some more new art supplies...

This is awesome. . . you've captured his expression and joy so well as well as a sense of him being outdoors and windblown. And the bridge is a nice touch. Is it the Golden Gate or where? Is this a gift to the boy's family? If so, they are going to LOVE it.

Turned out real nice Ernest! I am normaly not a big fan of the disembodied heads, but adding the bridge in the background helps to tie it down. I agree with Rainy, I can feel the cold wind just looking at this. It remindes me very much of standing on up at the top of the Marin Headlands across the bay from SF. Windy as all **** and COLD, but a beautifull view when the clouds part!

Thanks, folks, and thanks for watching! I have been told "The bridge connects Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas, and on this day it was the bridge's 50th anniversary."

(Talking with myself, it appears. Oh well, I can't complain about the company )

I bought a clutch pencil with HB lead, and I'm thinking this is much more to my liking. Here's a quick sketch from a different photo of the same boy at a younger age:
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This has a lot more subtlety to it than what I find I can get from regular mechanical pencils! I think it's comparable to what I can do with wood.

I haven't tried a clutch pencil (I'm not even sure what it is - I'll have to look it up for a translation. ), but I must say that I love mechanical pencils. I really like the thin line, especially since I have started to do crosshatching and try to avoid any sort of blending... I practically haven't picked up my wooden pencils since I got the mechanical one.