Another 5 hours or so of work done on this and I think I'm calling it done now. I've used Polychromos throughout, except for a layer of Blackberry (Derwent Coloursoft) on the background to get it darker. I had great fun (er...not really!) trying to get an accurate digi image of my drawing. After much cussing and blaming the software, I finally arrived at a pretty faithful representation.
In trying to render the values correctly in this I think I probably overdid it a bit with the reds. This brown paper does not take as much punishment as my usual sanded papers and you cannot put light colours over dark quite so readily. I'm quite pleased with it though and I want to use it as a kind of prototype for a larger portrait of the same pose which I'll do on sanded paper.
There is something weird about this drawing. Having finished it, I've noticed that Ben seems to look about five years older than he did in the earlier version of the drawing!! Maybe my brain's addled or something but I think I've aged him unintentionally. Is it just me or does anyone else see this too? I'm not sure now which version is the more authentic in terms of how Ben actually looks. To resolve this I'm going to email copies of both the earlier draft and the finished drawing to Ben and his mum (my sister) and ask for their views. It'll be interesting to hear what they think. I'll report back.
4 comments:
Great job Janet. Love it.
My feeling is that he doesn't seem to be aged. I think it is just the darker shadows on the final one.
The colors used give it an old masters look which is lovely.
Hi Janet
I think it's great! I am going to disagree with Dors though and say he does seem a bit older. I say seem and it's marginal, but i suspect it's one of those subjective things depending on how our own brains are subconsciously wired to 'read' faces.
You know that maturing process with boys as their brows become heavier. I wonder if the slight more shadowing you have applied above his brow has simply given it a tad more prominence. Brain 'sees' heavier brow and assumes older boy?
Just my thoughts and i hasten to add it in no way 'worsens' the picture!! It's super either way :o)
Thanks for that Dors, yes it is a bit 'old mastery' isn't it? :)
Alison, thanks so much for your observations, really helpful. I think you're right, there's something subliminal going on here!I think you do have a point about the eyebrows...interesting.
Hey Janet, I thought that too... I didn't exactly thought of five years, but definitely I thought "he looks older now". It IS a beautiful portrait, don't misunderstand me, but he looks older in the finished work. And I can't say why...
I'm going to read the last post now to unveil the mystery...
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