No. 2 Tips on Drawing Portraits  ​Having established some proportions in our portrait we can also think about adding tone, or shadows, ie. the range of light-to-dark areas which help to suggest three dimensions on the flat surface of the paper. It is helpful to make a black and white scale like this...

​Shading can be done with a pencil or ball-point in a cross-hatching style or more evenly using a brush with watercolour, or charcoal. Try experimenting with different media.

​Notice the direction of the light before shading the features which are in shadow. Note that cast shadows, those that are caused by an obstruction to the light, such as the nose, will have a harder edge than shadows which describe a rounded form like a cheek. Mark the areas of darkest tone (black) then gradually add the two or three mid-tones where necessary, adjusting as you go. If all the shadows are the same tone it will tend to ‘flatten’ the drawing. Remember, you are aiming to create the illusion of forms receding in space.

​I have always been fascinated by contrasts between dark and light and how the shadows frame the sunlight. This was a scene painted on the beach in Croatia where there are wonderful views out across the islands opposite. So much of life goes on along the shore and just seeing the water lifts my sprits.

We lived for five years right on the beach in Papua New Guinea where sometimes the sea came right up into our garden, and when the waves were high it felt like being in a ship at sea! At night we could watch the fishermen out with lamps on each tiny boat, stringing their nets between them to catch the fish as they swam up towards the light.

A lot about painting is in catching the atmosphere and transmitting the feelings that stir us onto the blank page in front of us. Seeing the painting again later can transport me back to how exactly how I felt at that moment, sitting beneath the trees and listening to the gentle stirring in the leaves above.

In conversation with Rosie PhippsQU “How long does it take to finish a picture?”
​
ROSIE “Well, it depends. There are two ways of looking at it. Contemplation and action. Contemplation belongs to the inner man. Action is an extension of this inwardness. One needs to wait until one is possessed. It is like religion.A painting is not a painting until one is possessed. A religion which lacks possession is not a religion.”

QU “Are you saying that a religion is not a religion unless it has a technique of possession attached to it?”

ROSIE “Yes. A religion is like painting. It is something to be  experienced. This is why it is so uncomfortable to exhibit them. One is turning a private space into a public arena.”
John realised that what Frances painted showed both her pain and her pleasure. Was she, and were the pictures, crying out to be looked at and appreciated by others, or was the act of creation enough in itself?

QU “I listened to John Cage's  4. 33” at a concert last week. 4.3 minutes of silence. The pianist sat motionless at the piano.Her fingers outstretched and tense ready to play.The cellist raised his right eyebrow indicating to her that she should start. She sat there and did nothing. The cellist, reflecting her silence, sat  motionless again with his arms poised as if to strike the first note.”

ROSIE “ I know the piece. He is allowing us to  experience the silence as a composer, not just a listener.The room was filled with people some of whom were drawn into the silence. It felt like a cathedral. We were held in that state of being that perfect attention creates. ”

QU “Yes. He is allowing the audience to experience the power of silence. The possession, and the action that follows from the possession of silence, and from which compositions are made and played.”

ROSIE “ What Cage did was to take that private space into a public space. What the audience then did with it was up to them.”

QU “ Yes. The silence is there for us all.It comes and goes with one's awareness. One has to listen for it. It can come spontaneously when one is alone, or holding someone one loves, or just by walking in the woods. The point is to be able to recognise it.”

ROSIE “There are times in one’s life when one's inner state matches that of the world and there appears to be no way out.There is no starting all over again with a new beginning. One just has to start where one finds oneself, within that silence, and pick up the pieces and start all over again. With art there is always an empty canvas.”​

QU “What are you working on now?

ROSIE “The sensuality of the land. The sheer eroticism of it. It is like flesh. I want to stroke it.I want to grab and mould it.”
 

​When the Booker Prize is announced and you want to read the book, you wouldn’t dream of writing to the author and asking for the original manuscript – you would be quite happy with a printed copy. But, for some reason, this is quite different in the world of art where the original is prized far above any copy. The Giclee method of making a copy of your painting involves photographing it very accurately and transferring this to a computer and then printing it out with a special large inkjet printer. Unlike your desktop printer this typically uses ten or twelve different light-proof inks and makes an extremely accurate copy of your artwork. It is printed onto high quality watercolour or art paper and if done properly looks indistinguishable from the original. Of course, not all art is suitable for copying and printing using the Giclee process, e.g. thick impasto surfaces. But many pictures do reproduce beautifully and, provided the printer adjusts the colour correctly, a suitable copy is produced. So why do so many people turn up their noses at this?

​The original work of art is clearly more valuable as, by definition, it has scarcity value. But should you be judging art by its commercial value? After all, you can sit down and relax listening to a beautiful piece of music on CD rather than going to a concert and it doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg. So why can’t you do something similar with a giclee print of whatever painting takes your fancy? It is possible to do this with prints from famous artists, but commercially they are often of rather poor quality with quite a distortion of colour. Hence, prints are viewed as something a student might put on their wall but not a suitable decoration for your adult home. Unfortunately, this then rolls through to less famous artists whose prints, even though of very high quality, are shunned in favour of originals. And this then means that their working practice becomes un-commercial. No-one wants their prints, so their price is pushed down and they cannot recoup the cost of their originals because of the long time and effort expended in producing them.

​One solution that is often tried is to produce a limited edition of the print. The buyer then thinks this is something special and exclusive and justifies a higher price. But isn’t this just pandering to snobbishness? The vast majority of people are not concerned about whether a book is a first edition or not, they just want to read and enjoy the story. So, as an artist whose paintings often take months to complete, my plea is – Buy the Giclee Prints!– these  copies of mine  are every bit as good as the originals and you can buy them very reasonably! If you would like to see them look for “prints” on my website at “ludwikart.com” or contact me via my “contact” page.

QU “How long does it take to finish a picture?”
​
ROSIE “Well, it depends. There are two ways of looking at it. Contemplation and action. Contemplation belongs to the inner man. Action is an extension of this inwardness. One needs to wait until one is possessed. It is like religion.A painting is not a painting until one is possessed. A religion which lacks possession is not a religion.”

QU “Are you saying that a religion is not a religion unless it has a technique of possession attached to it?”

ROSIE “Yes. A religion is like painting. It is something to be  experienced. This is why it is so uncomfortable to exhibit them. One is turning a private space into a public arena.”
John realised that what Frances painted showed both her pain and her pleasure. Was she, and were the pictures, crying out to be looked at and appreciated by others, or was the act of creation enough in itself?

QU “I listened to John Cage's  4. 33” at a concert last week. 4.3 minutes of silence. The pianist sat motionless at the piano.Her fingers outstretched and tense ready to play.The cellist raised his right eyebrow indicating to her that she should start. She sat there and did nothing. The cellist, reflecting her silence, sat  motionless again with his arms poised as if to strike the first note.”

ROSIE “ I know the piece. He is allowing us to  experience the silence as a composer, not just a listener.The room was filled with people some of whom were drawn into the silence. It felt like a cathedral. We were held in that state of being that perfect attention creates. ”

QU “Yes. He is allowing the audience to experience the power of silence. The possession, and the action that follows from the possession of silence, and from which compositions are made and played.”

ROSIE “ What Cage did was to take that private space into a public space. What the audience then did with it was up to them.”

QU “ Yes. The silence is there for us all.It comes and goes with one's awareness. One has to listen for it. It can come spontaneously when one is alone, or holding someone one loves, or just by walking in the woods. The point is to be able to recognise it.”

ROSIE “There are times in one’s life when one's inner state matches that of the world and there appears to be no way out.There is no starting all over again with a new beginning. One just has to start where one finds oneself, within that silence, and pick up the pieces and start all over again. With art there is always an empty canvas.”​

QU “What are you working on now?

ROSIE “The sensuality of the land. The sheer eroticism of it. It is like flesh. I want to stroke it.I want to grab and mould it.”
 

​Firstly, establish placement on the page, ie. Composition. Is the head in the centre or to one side, looking up or down?  If it’s to be a profile then perhaps more space is needed on the side the subject is facing.  Will the background be important?  Maybe some tone behind the head will help in producing a 3-D effect.  

Any emotions which are expressed will show in the face: sadness, joy, contemplation, smile or frown. Capturing these feelings will entail some concentrated study of anatomy, particularly around the eyes and mouth. ​

Basic measurements which help to establish placement of the features. The width of an average face equals approximately two thirds the length, but of course this will vary according to the individual.

​Once the shape of the face is outlined with vertical centre line and horizontal halfway measurements marked, divide into three sections, the first line indicating eyebrows, the second line the end of the nose.  Between the top third and halfway lines is the position of the eyes.  The lower third is divided into three to indicate mouth and chin.  Ears are generally situated between the brow line and tip of the nose in a frontal view.

Lastly, practice, practice and practice some more.

I hope my portrait drawing tips help you. 
Have fun!

My passion is symbolism, particularly geometry. Over 20 years of in depth research across numerous subject areas has resulted in an accumulation of dozens of books! Books in quantity are very heavy and the growing piles in my loft needed to come down before the ceiling collapsed. These piles remained, plus those already on my shelves, after two boxes of 'not so noteworthy texts' headed to the charity shop. 

It was like greeting old friends to see them all once more. Several are enticing me back into their pages. Can I remember everything...certainly not! But, it brought home to me how our minds and perspectives are fashioned by the information and knowledge we allow in. The more we read, the broader the scope of subjects, of opposing opinions not just those supporting our view, the more we open our minds.

Our universe is a vast place of incredible complexity and diversity that we are only scratch at the surface of in our understanding. My own journey has lead me down numerous paths of investigation as I mined for information. In my books my intention is to provide readers with accessible insights into a fascinating arena by distilling information and opening doors into areas they might want to delve into more.

With this in mind to encourage more reading and to support fellow authors I am posting a Recommended Read every week on my own BLOG, Instagram - KarenLFrenchSymbolism and Facebook.  

​Happy reading!

​I have been writing children’s fiction for a while now, but then one dark and stormy night, it occurred to me that I had other things to say which did not come under fiction. These other things I have to say came under a completely different category than the fantasy-thriller for young adults. I would hazard a guess that it is probably more personal than any story. It is some of the insights, learnings and understanding that I have acquired in my life-journey and which makes me - me.

​As it is Christmas and coming up to New Year, when typically most people think it is a time to make new resolutions, to create a possible new game plan for themselves, make changes to their life, make changes to their bodies, make changes to their mental perspective. Typically we do these things to improve our life, typically we wish to nudge it closer to the life that we think we should be living, and mostly aspirationally speaking, closer to our inner dreams for ourselves.
 
So onto the self-help book available in kindle now, and in paperback in the new year.
 
I have always been interested in the mad world of adults where rational decisions often seemed to be made irrationally, or at least so it seemed to me as a child. This curiosity turned into more than an interest when I not only noticed that most adults behaved this way, but I did too.
 
It was a desire to escape from my pre-ordained destiny that set me on the path to search for something that works in helping me avoid it. On a personal level, I don’t wish to lie on a psychologist’s couch and have the ‘techniques’ applied to me when if ‘one can be truly honest with oneself’, you will find the gifts within that truth and honesty all by yourself.
 
This I can do. Anyway that works for me.

That’s said rather tongue in cheek, because you don’t ‘just’ write it, it takes an idea, quite a lot of planning, a deal of knowledge and the advantage of being both a writer and an artist so you can illustrate it yourself too.

​The knowledge to write the books from my many years as an ‘Early Years Professional’ before I started writing – in other words I owned and ran a nursery for children aged between 3 months and 7 years for most of my own children’s early years – as well as ran courses for the local further education colleges. Initially training as a primary school teacher after the indulgence of my English Literature and Fine Art degree, and then finding myself still surprised and mildly protesting at being sucked into a career in finance and management, when I had my own children, I rebelled. Kids were fun, finance and management were not! So for over ten years, I immersed myself in ‘fun’ – as well as becoming a one-woman tornado of training and teaching and nurturing everyone from the fifty-somethings who had decide to come back to work as a nursery nurse, to the few-month-old-somethings needing their care. It wasn’t all fun, of course – and as anyone who’s run a business knows, there’s an awful lot of management and finance involved in any of them, including one revolving around kids! But it was also a hectic, fun and uplifting time – and taught me so much about people.