Preparations

Since the Dragon project is in abeyance until I sort out the imperial/metric problem, I’ve returned to my muttons (i.e., painting!)

It’s nearly a year since I did anything on “In the Sunshine”, partly because other things took precedence, and partly because I couldn’t see my way forward with the faces.  Since then, I have discovered new-found confidence in my drawing ability, so I am more willing to try out ideas in pencil or charcoal rather than lift the brush and hope!

I need to alter the lighting on the only good photo I have of my friends – I don’t want to ask them for a different one as they are not 100% aware of what I’m up to, and I can’t photograph them unawares as they live in France.  So I’m going to try a series of charcoal drawings to really get to know the faces and to work out how the different angle of the light will affect things.  Here is the first one.

I can’t say I’ve got a likeness of either of them.  Shifting the light from the their right to their left is an interesting exercise, and, indeed, the primary purpose of these sketches.  I had found pictures of various other people with the appropriate lighting to help me work out what to do but some of the anatomy of these assistants seems to have worked its way on to the paper, I think!   I will try to paint the revised shadows on to the canvas using these sketches then see what I can do about a better likeness later, small bits of elephant, as it were.