The National Portrait Gallery

For this week's task I had to pick a colour palette from a portrait in the National Portrait Gallery to produce a piece using these colours. I enjoyed looking at the different portraits in the gallery and I appreciated all the different styles and eras they were from. I decided to go for a warm colour palette consisting of yellow and orange tones as I really enjoy using coloured pencils with a slight contrast between warm and cool tones. I decided to use an online reference website as, from my previous weekly task, I noted that I wanted to try a portrait taken at a slight angle. In order to practise perspective and facial structure I spent a long time studying and refining my model and sketch to try and get the most accurate proportions possible. I chose this model because of their dynamic look and hair which stood out as something which would apply itself well to the colour palette. I found the nose challenging to draw accurately because of the angle. I wanted to ensure that it fitted well on the face because, at first, it looked out of place compared to the other features I had blocked in. I wanted to ensure that the facial construction was highly accurate before I began colouring. I really enjoy using coloured pencil so I had a lot of fun building up the layers and tones. 

I’m happy with the structure of this particular piece as I think it has been more successful in terms of accuracy than my previous two attempts. 

The colours I choose depict a bright, upbeat mood and I think they work well with the overall look of the model as well. 

Here are some of my shading process photos. As you can see, I built up the tones of the skin lightly, considering which parts would be cooler with thinner skin to bone and which would be pink or more yellow such as the cheeks and forehead. In order to achieve a smooth blend of the colours I needed to build them up very slowly so that the transition would look more natural. 

Overall I really enjoyed this week's task as I love working with coloured pencil in order to express a mood and present dynamic postures and features in a model.