Drawing the man of the day
As fitnessongwriterjoey would put it:
Strive for progress not perfection.
I can absolutely relate to that credo regarding my art as well. Sure, I want to improve and become better with every piece of art I create, but most of all, i want my art to breathe and be alive.
The color purple
Joey is 6’3’’ tall and built like a statue. I took inspiration from his pictures and drew him in medium purple crayons.
Once again my preferred color to draw and sketch proves to be extremely versatile. In the past i was using the most common tool for my sketches: graphite pencils. I was mostly using 2B back then. But I switched to purple crayons for a whole number of reasons. One of them was, a purple crayon is able to represent the idea of the human body and skin so much better than a reflecting pencil stroke would do. At least that’s my opinion. It’s so much more alive. And colorful. Also I somehow find it a lot suitable for me to achieve the impression of different skin colors in my portraits.
Drawing black skin
Yes, it is a different approach to draw a black man or a ginger type. Everything I draw is about light, shadows and reflections. So when I’m drawing a person with a dark brown skin like this beautiful man here, I must resist the temptation to darken to many areas of the drawing. Instead I try to focus on the areas and spots where the darkest shadows align with the brightest reflections of light.
Drawing in purple Polychromos crayons by Faber Castell on heavy Paper by Hahnemühle
29,7 x 42 cm / 11,7 x 16,5 inch