I absolutely love drawing people’s faces, I always have done since my first portrait at the age of 16. I like to get into the details of the eyes and hair, wrinkles and facial hair, all fun challenges for me. 

I love the way I can blend pastels and I can almost feel the contours of a face as I blend. Layering of hair is fun too, I start with colours you wouldn’t think were in the hair then eventually I build up the tones and true colours to give depth. 

Click on any thumbnail to see a larger image…

Portraits don’t always have to be smiling people looking straight at the camera. With smartphones these days we have the ability to take candid photos and of great quality too. 

I did the bubbles drawing you see below recently but it’s actually from an old photo I took with a camera nearly 30 years ago of my daughter. Although I can’t see eye detail or much of her face I liked the challenge of the hair and the red top, also the bubbles of course. 

Initially I started to draw the background but I then decided it was too fussy and distracting from the bubbles so I started again and I’m much happier with the plain background of the paper.