Mixed Media Portraits

Remember those backgrounds from yesterday? I made them into mixed media portraits of my parents to give to my dad for his birthday at the end of this month.

First I sketched them in pencil on each background, then, because the graphite pencil had a lot to compete with on those backgrounds, I decided to use cross hatching in ink to define the faces and bring them out.

I am new to cross hatching and, in the first portrait (of my dad), I just kind of went with it, not quite sure how to do it. It's a bit messy and I realised that I'd seen it done much neater. So I looked on YouTube and found a beginners guide to crosshatching and applied those ideas to the portrait of my mum. It looks much tidier and has a much more graphic quality. Both portraits, however, look a lot like their subject matter and my mum is definitely the neater of the two in real life too!

In a happy accident colour leaked from one side of my art journal to the other. I think it really ties the two portraits together even more.

What would you have used those backgrounds for? Have you ever drawn your parents? Would you like some instructions on how to draw this kind of image from a photograph? Let me know in the comments below.

Tomorrow I'll be practicing my cross hatching some more. I'm going to tackle something more complex... come back to see!