Peter Sleightholme by Utopist on Flickr.

Peter Sleightholme by Utopist on Flickr.

What a great portrait! Utopist on Flickr, whom I can not find a name for sadly, has tons of portraits in his Flickr stream. Several of them are more than noteworthy but I liked this one best.

If you look at the underlying pencil sketch – which you can see fairly clearly by zooming all the way in on the image – you can see there isn’t much to it. Not much shading – a few lines as guides to where shadows fall, and the nose and eyes perhaps get the most attention. Other than that, this is all watercolor. Take a close look at the bridge of the nose. A few of the spots where the watercolor dried quickly are actually what help make the nose. It is this randomness of watercolor that attracts me most.

As you all know I’ve been working very, very hard on my portraiture of late and – I have to say – I’m getting much better. I still have a long way to go but I’m happy that with every single sketch I’m improving. I’ve taken nearly a three week break from working with watercolor to practice on simply sketching the human face. And I believe I’m at the point now where I should begin to go back into the medium to practice portraits specifically with watercolor. I’m very much looking forward to it. Maybe I’ll even start tonight! A glass of wine, some jazz, and my watercolors.