Faces and Hands

The Let’s Face It course has left profiles behind and has moved on to depicting hands within portraits of faces.  I found full profiles pretty challenging but I think I am going to find hands possibly even more difficult.  It will be interesting to see if this section of the course helps me develop and improve my aptitude with drawing and painting hands – not hard since I tend to draw them either like Nosferatu claws or bunches of parsnips.

First up was a monochrome sketch of a face that incorporated a hand.  Kara Bullock’s tutorial demonstrated using conte crayon.  I do not own conte crayons so I pondered what other medium I might experiment with.  I have been enjoying exploring the possibilities of the Stabilo All pencil in mixed media pieces so thought I would dabble with using it solo in this sketch.

I used the Stabilo All in the same way I would use a charcoal pencil or thin stick of willow charcoal and then, when activated with water, attempted to use it in the same way I would use ink.  That methodology did not quite work out as I could not make the medium flow in the same way as I can with ink.  As a first experiment, however, I think there is potential for the Stabilo All as a drawing tool.  I like the fact, for instance, that even when activated some of the pencil like marks show through.

The less said about the drawing of the hand the better.

Incidentally, should you be interested, I am working on a challenge to create 100 illustrations of faces in ink and watercolour over on my art blog, Pict Ink.