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The Beauty of Line – Part 1: A Portrait of Angelo Verga
Page 2
Working on a 9 x 12” sheet of Canson heavy weight, medium toothed paper I used only my Staedtler Lumograph 8B pencils. It is imperative that your 8B be razor sharp (like a finely tuned piano). A good practice is to sharpen up a dozen 8B’s before embarking on your drawing.
Photographing line drawings is a devil of a job and I have had to make some adjustments that, unfortunately, result ed in some loss of line quality. But bear in mind that most reproductions of drawings and paintings are significantly inferior to the original works.
Very lightly strike the arabesque, lighter than I’ve shown here (the photo has been adjusted so that you can see my lines) and accurately place, then check the browline and base of the nose. Consistently striking the arabesque accurately is the foundational, not to mention critical, skill in realist portrait drawing and painting.
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I prefer a bifurcal approach to working out the elements of a drawing. By striking the arabesque accurately one begins the drawing from the outside-in. This is the better approach particularly in terms of composition – note how I have placed the head slightly to the right, this allows psychic breathing space otherwise the pictorial surface will feel cramped – but also when it comes time for you to tackle a double, or triple, portrait you will need to simultaneously compose and relate the heads to each other.
Within my arabesque I indicate the placement of the browline and the base of the nose. (Again, this photo has been manipulated to show the lines.) The facial features are now lightly sketched in beginning with the nose. A common error is to begin with an eye and then attempting to grow out the features. It doesn’t work that way: the eyes are too small and too prone to exaggeration due to our innate symbolic preconceptions to be accurately placed. The nose however is a significantly larger feature and is simply easier to size and place accurately.
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In the early years of one’s career I strongly believe that one should take a structural approach to drawing. It is very much like learning a new language, once one understands the structure then it is a simple matter of acquiring the knowledge to render structure freely and effortlessly. The linear drawings of artists such as Matisse and David Hockney, for example, are delightfully fluid and apparently effortless, which they are, but there are many years of study, practice and structure behind their work.
Initially, as we establish the placement and relative proportions of the head our drawing is two-dimensional. Our lines are visually flat. To create a three-dimensional spatial illusion I vary the intensity of my lines. The collar and sweater-vest are brought forward by means of a heavier line. The top and back of the head are rendered with a lighter line for a visual sense of spatial recession.
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