Samantha Portrait WIP 1

10 x 8" Polychromos Pencils on Colourfix sanded paper (Rich Beige)

This drawing is based on a photograph by Kelly Herdrich who kindly gave it on loan to Peter Weatherill, a fellow artist and tutor.  So, my thanks go to Kelly and Peter.

Yes it's true, I am a glutton for punishment - another portrait.  Normally, I work from my own photos and it's a little tricky drawing someone whom I've not met since I know nothing about the person and have not seen them 'in the flesh' as it were.  On the other hand, not knowing the subject means you're not going to bring your own preconceptions to the drawing, as mentioned in my previous post.
 The little girl's dress was originally pink and white but I've changed that to blue to give a better balance to the picture and lessen the impact of that hat (I think!).  I'm using some Turquoise Blues and Prussian Blue for the hat and dress.  For the hat, I laid down some Bluish Turquoise and Cobalt Green first and then smoothed it out with some cotton buds. Then I've gone back in with Prussian Blue to model some of the stitching.  It's a fine balance, I think, between not making the stitching too detailed and artificially regular and yet making sure that it reads as a knitted hat.  There's still work to do on the hat so we'll see.

Samantha's expression looks almost like a sneer so it'll be tricky to capture that without overdoing it and doing her an injustice!  She's quite young so I'm guessing she might be a little shy about having her photo taken.  I need to keep her skin tones quite light and also not age her too much.  Haven't decided about the background yet, hmmmm.