Today I felt like doing a quick pastel sketch of my wife. I just let it go and used whatever colors and values I felt like. I thought it was fun. Who cares what anybody else thinks?

I got a sketch pad and some pastels and drew a quick self portrait while trying to relax in my bedroom.  Here it is.  It certainly isn’t what I’d normally do.  I have some exciting cityscapes and landscapes in my studio, but they’ll have to wait.  You’ll have to look at this sketch.  By the way, you can use hair-spray as a fixative on pastel.

When I draw a face I first do a basic head shape, then put a line down the center where the nose goes. Next I find the line where the eyes appear, which is near the middle. Halfway between the eyes and the bottom of the chin is where the bottom of the nose goes, then halfway between there and the chin is where the bottom of the lip would be. I actually draw in the shapes of the shadows as well as the facial features.

I always have my sketchbook handy and draw anyone I can. It is a lot less expensive than hiring a model.

When doing the face look to see where the top of the ears line up compared to the eyes, then the bottom of the ears to where the nose or mouth are.  Usually the edge of the mouth is straight down from the pupil of the eye.

When drawing a face, have a light on the subject so there is light and shadow.  It will give the drawing or painting depth.  You can see the shadow on the right side of this drawing.

I have studied the structure of the face extensively, so I try to portray cheekbones, the bones over the eyes, the chin, eyelids, and lips.  You will notice this drawing is done with a ball-point pen.  I portray the shadowy areas with crosshatch.  The lighter the area is, the smaller amount of ink.  I have used colored pencils to add life to the face.  The shadow areas are in blue, and the lighter areas in yellows and oranges.

This was one of his assignments: we were to go home and draw our self-portrait for our class the next day. I sat in front of the dresser-mounted mirror in the bedroom. You can see from my eyes how intensely I worked. You can see the facial structure and planes of the face.

Yes, I was bald then. I had dark hair though. Now I’m still bald, but have almost white hair and a full white beard.

To become good at most things takes a lot of practice.  This would include playing the piano, singing, dancing, and art.  I draw four or five portraits per day.  Quite often I am using a ball-point pen.  I find that if I can draw well, my painting does well.  Also I’ve found I do much better doing a portrait from a live person than a photograph.  People have asked me to draw from a photo, but this method is rarely satisfying because the photos usually  are flat looking, have no dimension to the face, and are just too hard to read.  I recommend doing at least a half hour of drawing practice every day, and to draw from life.

This is an award-winning self portrait I did in nupastel.  Nupastel is similar to charcoal, but has a tighter consistency and comes in different colors. I sat in front of a mirror and drew this.  First I lightly shaded the whole paper.  Then I did a simple outline of my face.  I concentrated on the darker values, for example around my eyes and nose.  I erased away the nupastel on the areas of lightest value such as the highlight on my forehead and nose.  After that, I filled in the medium values.  The technique is very simple, but makes a dramatic finished product.