USK:MTL Portrait Party

This month USK:MTL needed a place to sketch indoors. It’s officially
too cold to sketch in the streets. It seemed like a great idea to do a
Portrait Party. I was inspired by Julia Kay’s Portrait Party group on Flickr. I put up my own face the other day and have already got a collection of drawings back!

Even if you’ve never been to one, it’s pretty
straightforward hey? Just invite a bunch of artists, sit around a big
table and draw whoever is sitting across from you. Nobody is supposed to
worry about accurate likenesses or being flattering. Anything goes as
far as media or style.  You shouldn’t be a perfectionist, approach it
with a sense of fun. You are donating your own visage, in return for
borrowing another person’s face.

In order to loosen up for the night I sketched a few students in my watercolor classes. (Which still has a few openings next session
🙂  They were working an ‘open’ assignment, doing their own thing, so I
stole some high speed impressions in between my walk-and-talk critique
rounds. (Ballpoint and Kuretake #13 Brushpen).

After
last week’s drawing day at the Higgins Armory, some of the artists
headed out for dinner. Immediately (without even asking) we brought out
sketchbooks and began drawing each other.

Here’s Greg Shea, James Gurney and Gavin Baker.

The week before that I’d gone to a Montreal Drink and Draw party – and brought back these – done with Private Reserve water soluble inks.

So, what with all these social drawing situations I was thoroughly warmed up for USK:MTL’s official portrait party.

I
brought three Canson 9×12″ watercolor blocks and just rotated through
the sketches – switching whenever the paper was soaked, so they’d be
mostly dry by the time I got back to the top of the rotation.

It
was quite cold at our location – (you’ll see everyone is wearing scarves
indoors). A chill always slows down drying time. I think that was
actually an advantage – I ended up working more wet-in-wet than I would
normally, which is handy inside the flesh tones. Though, strategically
speaking, I’m still mostly following my wet-on-dry, Tea, Milk, Honey
method of three passes of gradually richer washes.

[Benedictine]

I
think these are all good examples of my philosophy about drawing
eyeglasses. Which is – as much as possible – don’t draw them at all.

I
try to indicate the frames with open shapes – dashed arcs that do not
close the outline of the lens. Hint at the thickness and the distortion
of the glass, but don’t over emphasize the frames. Even when they are
the chunky dark kind that are in fashion these days. Also, consider how
the eyebrow often merges with the frame. And, don’t forget the cast
shadow. Just like drawing the hair line, the arms and nose-piece might
need a subtle, descriptive shadow.

[Lucy]

[Suzanne}