Transition

Our boy is 13, that magical age when you’re so grown up – except when you want to feel tiny again. His face is in that flux between boyhood and manliness, the jaw strengthening, the brows becoming bolder. I snapped a photo of him at the weekend, building a beehive with his Dad (that’s another story) – he’s looking hard at one of the pieces they’re in the throes of assembling.

Wanting to do a quick study today, I used my photo as a reference, and sketched in my brown paper book. I used graphite for the initial sketch, and then black and white chinagraphs for darks and highlights. Once again, I like the texture and mid-tones the brown paper has produced.  I think that this one is recognisably him – the advantage of working from a photo where the subject doesn’t wriggle!