Free Book: Drawing Portraits Post #027

1.2.30 Feeling


It might seem strange to talk about feeling in connection with drawing, but one of the goals of art is to induce some kind of emotion in the viewer. You can use expression on a person's face to convey a feeling. This might be sadness, shock, tiredness and so on. Also, the background, texture, composition and the way that objects are presented will have an influence on the feeling of a picture. Colour invokes emotion but in our graphite portraits, we have only shades of grey. Although this might seem a disadvantage, it can by very dramatic and deep. It is interesting that black and white photography used to be the cheap and easy method, while colour photography was considered expensive and elite. But today, we find that the processes for colour photography has become mass produced, cheap and common. Black and white photography is now considered dramatic, arty and elite. At the time of writing (2008), graphite art is slowly making progress in the art world. Hopefully, this is because great graphite works are so capable of showing feeling. The absence of colour should be treated as an advantage to bring out the drama of a subject.