MINDFUL Portraits

In this masterclass, I wanted to show you the process of creating a long-form portrait drawing, taking a straightforward approach in pencil. Longer drawings require some extra pacing and planning; the aim is to take things slow and stick to the process. It is very tempting to focus upon an interesting corner of the portrait and neglect the rest of the drawing. As you will see over the next few pages, while I tackled each feature in turn, I was still thinking generally about the head as a whole subject, so all aspects of the portrait developed together.

To keep things naturalistic, I’ve avoided hard outlines, and have erased or covered any construction lines. By working with a light touch and adding lots of layers, I was able to erase the graphite more easily.

What follows is quite a tight drawing, but I tried to balance this with character in the marks and edges. Applying pencil marks in creative