Guidelines for Pencil Portrait Sketching - Painterly Awareness Mode

There are many modes of drawing: linear, tonal, gestural, etc. In this expose we will focus on carving out shape with a painterly feeling.

This mode of drawing is very much like working with putty except that we are sketching on paper, of course, and using our fingers, a stump, tissue, and the putty eraser as our painting tools.

As always, begin with striking the construct and establishing the essential proportions of the facial region.

Before hatching-in the key light/dark patterns you should squint and look at the subject or the photograph. Squinting distills the lights and darks into uncomplicated patterns of one given value because it obscures the minutia.

At this point, just concern yourself with the big masses, maybe even just two, a light one and a dark one. Do not yet attempt to break down the darks at this point.

Working in this way is also good training for painting because this is how you build up a painting in particular when using the Alla Prima method of painting.

Sketching, painting, and sculpture are additive/subtractive activities. You first add something and then you take something back, all the while progressing towards the finished sketch.

You also will use your putty eraser to carve out the lights. When doing this pay careful consideration to the anatomical features; every shape signifies a skeletal landmark.

We all have our individual preferences about how we work. At this point, you may prefer to refine the construct and work on the facial features. Other artists will go on working value-wise without any line work. As you gain skill and grow as an artist you will make your own choices. That is what art making is: choices - bad and good.

Now that we have the fundamentals down including the overall proportions, we can begin reworking the darks and the lights. The point is to go for the "full stretch" of tones, i.e., from the darkest darks to the lightest light.

Beginning and intermediate artists often fail to go for the full tonal interval. Quite often the rationale for this is the apprehension of ruining their drawing and also because they have read, or been told, not to overwork the drawing.

As a beginner you should take a drawing as far as you possibly can, even to the point of collapse. That way you will learn precisely how far you can go. If you always finish short you will never know what lies beyond.

Use your fingers, a tissue, and a stump to blend the tones. The best thing is to start dividing each large tonal mass into two separate smaller masses of different tones wherever your observations tell you there is a distinction in value to be made. Keep in mind the changing planes and the anatomy of the model's features.

The hair is kept dark and simple with only a few strokes of the putty eraser to suggest the unkempt locks of hair. Do not overdo these strokes or they will look blanched.

In conclusion, when utilizing the painterly mode of drawing a pencil portrait always treat your tools as if they were brushes. Act as if as much as possible that you are sculpting instead of drawing. Always bear in mind the anatomy and the changing plane directions that you observe in your model. Always work from the general to the specific or from the large to the small. As you get more skill, try to remember the things that work for you and include them in your style of drawing.

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Download my brand new Complementary Pencil Portrait Drawing Course here: www.remipencilportraits.com/PPDT/pencil-portrait-tutorial.html target="_blank">Pencil Portrait Drawing Course. Remi Engels is a practicing pencil portrait draftsman and oil painter and skilled sketching instructor. See his work at Pencil Portraits by Remi: www.remipencilportraits.com Visit Tips on Pencil Portrait Sketching - Painterly Awareness Mode.

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