Get to know Gerard Bryceland and some of his painting thoughts
Gerard Bryceland or the growth of a painter? Whether you add water to the mix or not, one problem you’ll run into when drawing with charcoal is smudging. Charcoal’s soft nature allows it to be blended, which is a huge benefit. But, that same soft nature also leaves it vulnerable to unwanted smudging. Every artist has accidentally smudged a drawing at one point or another when they leaned on it without thinking about it, and it can be incredibly frustrating. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to avoid smudging your drawing. First, you workable fixative regularly as you work. Make sure that you use it in a well-ventilated area. Next, use a piece of scrap paper and lay it on top of the drawing to rest your hand on. This will help to prevent unwanted smudges, as long as you don’t allow the paper you are resting your hand on to move.
Drawing realistic portraits can definitely be a challenge, but this holds true at the beginning for any new technique that budding artists wish to learn. The key to conquering portrait drawing is by mastering each facial feature, in this case the sum of all the right parts will make an accurate whole. It is very important to train your eye to observe the essential details that give each face its own individual identity – the drooping of the eyes, the slant of the lips, the slightly arched eyebrow, and many other particularities that can help you achieve a realistic portrait. Not to worry, though the human body may seem too complicated at first, it can be simplified and broken down into easier and more manageable parts! Let’s give thanks to the generally symmetrical bodies that nature has gifted us with that allowed us to create basic rules of proportions to serve as our useful starting point. Now, let’s start with the step-by-step of portrait drawing by first gathering the materials you’ll be using for this tutorial.
Gerard Bryceland‘s tricks on portret painting: The tones, colors and textures of the skin are all built up in thin layered glazes of paint applied over the flesh toned underpainting. Transparent glazes of burnt sienna (occasionally darkened with Prussian blue) and naphthol crimson are used for the darker tones and colors, while more opaque glazes of titanium white are used to create the highlights on the skin. The dark tones are applied with a burnt sienna glaze over the flesh colored underpainting. A variety of small brushstrokes, stippling and smudging is used to render the softly blended tones of the face.
Self-Portrait Drawing Tips: Don’t obsess over creating a perfect likeness of yourself. As an artist, you should be working to express yourself, and that expression includes drawing what you feel as much as what you see. If you want a perfect copy of your face, you can take a picture for that. If you want an intriguing and thought-provoking self-portrait, then worry more about the mood of the piece rather than trying to create a photo-realistic drawing. Color can be your friend. Whoever said that a self-portrait has to be black and white? You could draw your self-portrait in graphite or charcoal, or you could be more adventurous and try colored pencils, pastels, or oil pastels. Or, you could really step your game up and try painting a self-portrait with watercolors, gouache, acrylics, or oils.
About Gerry Bryceland: I’m Gerard Bryceland an artist based in Maidstone Kent and regularly get commissioned to do work doing paintings and portraits of people and their families. I’ve always been an artist from my childhood, I loved drawing my friends and family initially just to mess around with my friends and had a lot of fun drawing them. But as i got older it really just became a business as my friends and their families would want me to do family portraits and that type of thing. With word of mouth word gets out and before you know it you know it I’m 35 and still doing the same thing.
