Charcoal Portrait Sketch of Esme

I just finished transferring my drawing for an oil portrait of my daughter onto a panel, and while I was waiting for that to be dry enough to paint over, I decided to do a charcoal study of her just for fun.

I’m drawing on heavy, smooth-surfaced, gray-toned paper (purchased years ago…so I forget the brand) using General’s charcoal pencils in white and black. The white, which is basically chalk, only comes in one hardness. The black I’m using for this sketch is labeled hard. I’m keeping the charcoal pencils quite sharp using a razor knife and sand paper. The eraser is a standard Prismacolor kneaded eraser. 

This study took just over three hours but, as usual, I’ve sped up the footage in certain parts to make it watchable, and narrated over the top to try and explain my process. 

I’ve placed the reference photo I worked from next to the drawing-in-progress so you can, hopefully, see what I’m basing my decisions on. Keep in mind, because I’m filming from slightly to the side, the drawing is foreshortened in the video and appears narrower than it really is.

I hope you find this video instructive, or at least interesting. At this early stage in my Patreon experiment, I’m really guessing as to how much to compress/speed up the footage and how much narration to add over the top. Please let me know in the comments if you find the videos too long, or if you’d prefer longer videos with less acceleration of the footage, and if the explanations in the narration are sufficient for you to understand what I’m doing. 

Thank you all for your patronage!

Music credits: 

‘Gymnopedies 1, 2, &3’ by Erik Satie

‘Claire De Lune’ by Claude Debussy

‘Nocturne in E flat major, Op. 9 no. 2’ by Frederic Chopin