Graphite Drawing of Actress Anne Hathaway WIP 4

I am really beginning to enjoy this piece.  She is really coming to life.  Faces do not have all of the creases and minute details that one experiences when drawing hands...  Much more of a free flowing atmosphere in the studio. 

 

The hair is making its appearance into the composition with the introduction of the eyebrows and hairline.  I am not sure that the rest of the hair will be as relaxing as the facial features, but it has got to be better than dealing with animal fur! ;)

 

 

Here is a little comparison with the reference photo.  Sorry for the glare, but the lights of my studio can be a real pain! 

Graphite Drawing of Actress Anne Hathaway WIP 3

Here is how the portrait of Anne Hathaway was looking at the beginning of my session.  As you can see, I have the reference photo, that I enlarged in the sketching stage, taped to the upper corner.  The 4 x6 reference photo helps me to see sharp details.  Most of these details are blurred in the larger photo that was printed.  As always, my preference is to work from a color photo.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the composition as it sits now.  The mouth isn't exactly at the point that I would like it to be, but it is close enough for now.  The graphite is photographing a little blotchy.  The light source in the room isn't friendly to photos presently.  When tweaking the original drawing, it is heaven sent to have the grid! :)

 

Graphite Drawing of Actress Anne Hathaway WIP Cont.

I am glad to be updating the blog.  Unfortunately, blogger still hasn't fixed the loading issues... But lucky for me, my son fell in love with a new phone to do his Internet on and his laptop hasn't had updates for months.  This laptop isn't completely happy with blogger, but it is at least letting me load some posts for the time being.

 

The pic below is a little hard to see, but it is the line drawing transferred to Bristol board.  If you look closely, the grid has only been reconstructed mainly over the facial features.  I am not planning a background to this composition and may let the hair fade off on the edges.

 

 

 

 

 

I began the drawing with the nose... probably not my smartest choice. :(  This is where the drawing almost ended up in the trash.  It looks really harsh as you can see.  To calm my frazzled nerves, I worked on my area of facial feature preference-- the eyes.  The eyes are the windows to the soul.  Funny that they can be created with very little shading, but when they decided to come together, it is an amazing feeling.  It ceases to be a piece of paper and the portrait begins to come to life...

 

Graphite Pencil Sketch of Actress Anne Hathaway WIP

My mind has been preoccupied with the idea of working on some subjects that are out of my comfort zone for drawing.  With the ringing in of the New Year, I made a resolution to spend more time on my art and push my self imposed boundaries.  It has been on my mind for some time to work on human facial features, but I have been having troubles locating descent photos to work from.  Although I hadn't given much thought to the fan art movement, it is hard not to notice the wealth of celebrity photos on the internet.  There is a regular treasure trove of subjects to choose from.  After looking thru numerous photos, I settled on a small 4x6 of Anne Hathaway.  She has some strong features that work perfectly to practice on.  Plus, the photo of her had some heavy shadowing that I really need to have when creating graphite drawings. 

 

As you can see below, I have a line drawing that was sketched on transfer paper.  This has always been my method, so that I always have the original drawing in case of false starts. ;)

 

 

 **For those that are new to the Sketches blog, I have a few grids of various sizes drawn on Bristol board that I mount the transfer paper on.  I choose the grid that fits the size that I am blowing the drawing up to.  After the line drawing is done, I mark the dimensions of the grid on the paper and transfer the drawing onto Bristol board.  The grid marks on the drawing are used to recreate a grid on the areas of the drawing that have a lot of detail and will be blended with graphite in the finished composition.  The grid, in this case, was constructed over her face and part of her neck.

I would love to show you my early blending on this composition, but blogger would only let me load one picture.  Hopefully, blogger will get its glitches fixed over the next few days.  I can tell you that I initially struggled with the nose and almost threw the drawing out. Time will tell if the features start to come together. :)

Happy New Year!!