Blog marathon once more. Post 1--a portrait of a good friend.

Okay folks--Going by the huge encouragement  I have got on FB as well as twitter, where I asked if I should do a blog marathon again (have done it for three consecutive years now--2009, 2010 and once  and  2011), I have decided to take the plunge and do my fourth now, starting today.
Wheeeeeeeeee :)

So starting today, for the next 30 days, this blog will be updated daily! :) On some days, when I am too tired to write a new post, or if I (or you!) feel bored hearing the sound of my own words,there might be guest posts by some interesting people. Some days, there might be just a picture that I might want to share with you and sometimes maybe even an interesting video I found or a dish I cooked.

Either ways I promise you  all good stuff :) Not 'filler stuff' written to just make a post. (Readers who have followed my blog marathons do know that).

It would be great if you could join me on this journey by leaving me a comment, just so I know you hear me. I might not be able to reply individually like I do for all my posts, but I will try. And definitely will be looking forward to reading what you have to say as comments do matter to a blogger.

My first post is a portrait of a very good friend Ajay, that I completed yesterday. He was so pleased with it, that he has made it his display picture on his FB as well as BBM :)

The portrait took me about 14 hours to complete.(I did it over three days, not at a stretch)

When I put this up on FB, a few people  who do not know that I do portraits,commented asking which software I use! Some asked how I do it. So I thought would put up these early pictures, which explain how this portrait developed.

The first step to a portrait is an accurate line drawing. You should not start shading until you are absolutely convinced that the line drawing is correct. Even the smallest millimeter can make a huge difference in the final look of the portrait. So you have to take measurements and see that the outline is PERFECT--only then can you hope for a good resemblance. A mistake many beginners make is that they start shading straight away even when the proportions are wrong.Then they wonder why there is no resemblance to the subject in the finished portrait.

 When I make the line drawing I also mark the light and dark areas. I use a very very light pencil (2H) so that the lines do not show in the final portrait. I also use masking tape in the side to hold my work in place, on to the drawing board.

Some people like to do the eyes first. I started with the hair. The hair took a LOT of work, as it has to be built up layer by layer. I prefer doing the hair and eyes first, because these two areas are my 'darkest darks'. All other tones will be in comparison to these darks. In pencil portraits, there are many shades of gray and you have to very observant to see which shade of gray brings out the light, and how dark a shading should be for a realistic effect.

As you can see, there is beginning to be a likeness in the picture above, but still there is a long way to go.

I usually play music when I do my art. When I was making this one, the music that was playing was maula mere maula, Snow patrol's Chasing cars and Aerosmith's "I don't wanna miss a thing"
(click on links to listen to the songs)

After I made the eyes and hair, I went on to the lips and other parts. I had to lift off, smudge, blend, lift off , smudge, blend (techniques in pencil portraits) endlessly till I was satisfied.

Making a portrait as you can see is a lot of hard work.

But oh the joy!! :)

So there--for the first post of this blog marathon, you got three nice songs to listen to, apart from knowing how a pencil portrait is developed. Wasn't that interesting?

Good night folks! See you tomorrow.  :)

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