Charcoal Portrait of Julie

[Molly Sherrick Phifer]

Jonathan,

This is really lovely! What size is it and what type of paper are you using? Also, about how long are you taking to do this? It looks like you have done this from life. Is that right?

Please post more!

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Jonathan,

I love her strong shadows and the way she looks at the viewer. Love to see more....

[Jonathan Hardesty]

Molly Sherrick Phifer - Thanks for your kind words. It's just under life size and I think it's somewhere around 16 x 20 size. That's a really rough estimate...but around that size. The paper I am using is a pale blue canson mi-tientes...normally I use the front side heheh. This took about 4 hours but I should have been able to do it in 2 hours. I ran into some problems with the likeness that I had to figure out. But it was about 4 hours. It was from life as well. I haven't ever done anything from a photographic before but I think it would probably take me longer than doing it from life at this point.

Enzie Shahmiri - Thanks! I will definitely post up some more when I can. I'm always a sucker for having the model look straight at me...It's an easy way to draw the viewer eyes.

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EDIT: My wife just walked in the room and said I had to tell all of you that this "looks much better in person". She's Italian... I do what I'm told.

[Claudemir Bonfim]

Very nice job!

[Sharon Knettell]

Jonathan.

LOVELY!

I dither over my painting concepts which has resulted in lots of charcoal drawings. Paintings take SO long to do, especially when you are dealing with live models, it is nice to relax and actually turn out a piece in a session or two.

[Alexandra Tyng]

Jonathan,

This is such a wonderful drawing in so many ways: the varying of strokes, the expression you've caught, the way you've turned the paper and placed her head and the little bit of chair back on it. There's so much rich texture, too. I think the scratchy paper adds to it.