100 Pencil Portraits - Number 3

Charlotte Gainsbourg

100 Pencil Portraits - Number 2

100 Pencil Portraits

I've set myself a project for this year: to do 100 pencil portraits. Ok, so, to some people, thats not very much, (even I remember doing 50 multimedia faces in two weeks in college ) but it's just a way for me to regain some discipline and keep drawing, even when I don't feel like it, in between other things and work etc. I've gathered a file full of faces (I might do some from life later on, too) and I'm just trying to churn them out, not being too precious about it, and posting them all no mater how bad I think they are. Hopefully, by dong this over and over, with just the one medium, I’ll improve my drawing skills, become more fluid and make more interesting marks in my drawing. Another side effect I’m hoping for is, that I’ll get so bored of faces and pencils - two areas I’m way to comfortable in - I’l try something else, loosen up and experiment more.

So, here’s number 1...

Coloured Sea Medusa

Some experimenting with watercolour, ink and Photoshop on an old drawing.

Hmmm, where to go next?

The start of something...

Theda Bara - Finished Pencil

Portrait of silent movie star Theda Bara from Cleopatra in 1917. This was an exercise in using the rendering skills I usually use in my more realistic drawings and applying them to a cartooned image. 

This is what Wikipedia has to say about the film:

Cleopatra (1917) was directed by J. Gordon Edwards and starred Theda Bara in the title role. Fritz Leiber, Sr. played Julius Caesar and Thurston Hall played Mark Antony.

It was one of the most elaborate Hollywood films ever produced up to that time, with particularly lavish sets and costumes. According to the studio, the film cost $500,000 (approximately $8.3 million in 2009) to make and employed 2,000 people behind the scenes. The story of this silent film was very loosely based on the plot of William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. Theda Bara appeared in a variety of fantastic costumes, some quite risqué. The film was a great success at the time.

However, years later, with the imposition of Hollywood's Hays Code, the film was judged too obscene to be shown. The last two prints known were destroyed in fires at the Fox studios and at theMuseum of Modern Art in New York. Only a few fragments in the hands of museums survive to this day.