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CHILD PORTRAITURE – Phoebe Hicks
Children are notoriously difficult to capture on canvas but armed with charcoal, Phoebe Hicks is about to show us that anything is possible.
Reference Image
Materials
Soft Pastel Card
Charcoal – Variety of weights, including white
Short bristle brush
Putty Rubber
Blade (for sharpening)
Find these items at cassart.co.uk
The first marks
Attach soft pastel card onto a board or other hard surface.
Consider your proportions before you begin drawing. Refer to your reference image to help guide you find the proportions of the head.
Once you are happy, use soft charcoal to start blocking in the corners of the silhouette. In this case, it’s the round cheeks and sides of the head.
Eyes, nose and mouth relations
Use your reference image to study and draw in the dark areas of the face. These are natural shadows around the eyes, nose and inside the mouth. The relationship between these three elements are key to achieving a likeness.
TOP TIP – File your charcoal so it looks like a chisel. As these are delicate features, you don’t want to muddy the paper with too much charcoal. This will give you more control.
Patience is key
As you start to fill the darkest parts of the eye, keep referring to your reference image and don’t rush any drawing. Taking your time helps to study and translate the lines from your reference image to the paper.
Continue capturing dark parts
Once you’re happy with the dark parts around the three important features (eyes, nose and mouth). Continue to study and translate the other dark lines you can see in your reference image onto your paper.
Blocking in the hair
At this stage, it’s useful to block in some of the hair you can see in your reference image. This gives you more volume to work with, rather than just outlines.
TOP TIP – Adding volume at this stage makes it easier to move it around. The blocking in gives you a sense of the overall drawing.
More blocking in
When you’ve finished blocking in the hair, move on to blocking in the other darker shadows and masses you can see across the face.
Isolating the light
Because children have soft features, light hits their faces differently than someone older. Here, we want to show how the light emphasises their rounded features. Using your reference image, study the lightest parts of the face. In this case, it’s the cheeks, corner of the jaw, nose and forehead.
Therefore, we want to isolate the lightest parts with no charcoal. Continue to concentrate on blocking and defining the sharpest corners; like the rounding at the bottom of the cheek. This is how we define and bring out these round three-dimensional features.
Using the bristle brush and eraser
After isolating the light, use a short bristle brush to work the charcoal into the paper. To regain the isolation of light in the rounded areas, use an eraser where the charcoal shouldn’t be. In this case, the focus is around the eyes. This process can take time to get right, so be patient. You will eventually achieve a sense of volume in the face.
TOP TIP – Press firmly with your bristle brush. It will either work its way into the paper or will rub away. Keep working until you are happy with the shadow likeness from your reference image.
Isolating and defining
Continue to use a patient and careful approach when defining the features. Don’t be afraid to add charcoal in areas where you need more defining. Here, charcoal is added to help define the nose more. It won’t necessarily stay there, but it helps your workings out for other features and shadows.
TOP TIP – It’s helpful to imagine the head as a piece of marble that you are slowly and carefully chipping away at to bring out the features gradually.
The hair
Before getting too focused on the features, pay attention to the hair. Use the charcoal to define the thicker or curled parts of the hair. Using a combination of the previous steps, use your bristle brush and eraser to bring back any highlights and create direction.
You can use this technique on any part of your drawing. For example, a cheek is round, so move your tool in the direction of the roundness.
TOP TIP – Focus on the direction of your movement with all your tools. Move with the tool to create directional curls or highlights that are in your reference image.
Highlights and accents
When you are happy with what you have established so far, you can start to think about the highlights and accents. Analyse your reference image and notice where these are. In this case, there is some under the chin, cheek and around the lips. Using the eraser, carefully go around them and stay directional to bring out the highlights.
More highlighting
Continuing with your highlights, you can start to think about them in the more sensitive features. Use your eraser and stay controlled whilst adding these small details.
TOP TIP – Mould your eraser into a point so you have more control when adding highlights, in areas like the eyes.
Adding chalk to the highlights
Use a white chalk pencil to really bring out your highlights. Here it’s being used to show where the light is hitting the eye in the reference image.
TOP TIP – Ensure your chalk has a fine point. Be delicate and gently press and twist the chalk for small areas like the eye highlights.
Revisiting the hair
Now that the face is starting to become defined, we need to revisit the hair. Use the bristle brush to brush out your blocking of the hair. All hair is different, so analyse your reference image’s hair before adding darker highlights. In this case, the darker highlights are the curls. Using the charcoal pick out the strong curls and move directional with the way they flow.
Pick out the accents of hair that you want to concentrate on, these will be your highlights to emphasise it being three-dimensional. The rest of it can be a soft matte.
Use your chiselled charcoal to add smaller accents of hair that can demonstrate the movement better.
TOP TIP – Curly hair is good to draw when practising. There’s more definition to find and bring out.
Transitions and finishing touches
Using what you have learnt in the previous steps, you should keep revisiting each part of your drawing. This is where you should make sure all the transitions work well together. For example, a characteristic in this reference is the hood above the eye. It is a sharp turn, so you want to highlight this by gently going over your previous lines. The slower transitions are the smoother parts. We would revisit this with our tools and adjust until we are happy with the likeness.
TOP TIP – Being patient with your refinements is everything. Analyse your reference image and understand where the appropriate highlights should be brought out further. Look at how the slower transitions go into the softer areas and decide if the eraser or brush needs to bring it back. Use your charcoal to define the sharper and darker areas more – you can always bring it back if it’s too much.