The Sketchers

While we were staying at the lovely Mas Bernad  there were a few moments where I had my pick of unwitting models to sketch, as everyone was busy drawing or painting. That’s why the subjects are all looking down, with their concentrating faces on!

It was very good fast sketch practice, using just a few pencil guidelines and trying to let the paint work for me. In some cases this turned out better than others. As you see, I attempted to rescue the face on the bottom left by adding definition in black fineliner; I don’t think this was particularly successful, but sometimes you have to try these things.

The models were very kind and didn’t grumble at all about the portraits, however unlike them they turned out. I noticed that it was less of a struggle to capture some likeness of the people I knew best (the top two characters, Andy and Suzie) than to sketch Jackie, who I met for the first time that morning. The experience brought home to me how much subconscious processing our brains do with subjects, building up familiarity and a library of shapes and shades through observation over time, even before you think of putting pencil to paper. Food for thought…