Sketching

I recently discovered this sepia photo of my great grandmother Richards. I believe her name was Letitia. She died around the time I was born so I never knew her. I remember growing up that adults would speak in awe of Granny Richards.  My grandmother was a really sweet lady but a bit flawed with alcoholism and apparently (according to my Mum when I was old enough to hear it) she ran off for a while with her “fancy man” leaving my mother to raise her younger sister and housekeep for my grandfather. I was privileged to meet my Aunt Bertha, my grandmother’s sister who was the only one of the siblings to make it to old age. We were jolly friends and correspondents back in the day when letters with stamps were an efficient and polite mode of communication. Aunt Bertha had a very upright bearing and very “proper” manner and she looked for all the world like Granny Richards so by inference I have decided that Granny Richards was awesome because of her kindness and erudition.

Anyway, I had a couple of goes at sketching Granny Richards in pencil. I used a 4B pencil.As you can see the results are a bit lame. The orientation of the head is all wrong.

However, the subject still fascinated me and I wanted to be able to paint myself and her together, now that I am also an old lady. I started by doing selfies to get a pose which would look like we might be in the same space. Using the wonders of Powerpoint and Paint I came up with a pose that looked about right:

I used Staedtler Norris Club coloured pencils which contain gold and silver pencils. I used those to attempt the sepia effect for Granny. Unfortunately my reference photo fades to nothing when it comes to her hair so I have to imagine how it would have looked. I have a thing for accidentally enlarging eyes, so I tried hard not to do that this time. I think I managed it with my eyes. My son, the honest critic, points out all the flaws, especially my lips, however I was pleased with the result and my first attempt at sketching with coloured pencils since high school. I hope you like it.

POSTSCRIPT: I can see, after time has passed, that my face is too round, my mouth is in the wrong place between my nose and chin. I was so impressed with the graceful curve of Granny’s neck that I overdid it and put her on a stalk. I am still impressed with my glasses but I think I could have been kinder to my neck and made my jawline less slack. I think I will have another go in acrylic one day.