I’ve been studying Valentin Serov’s portraits. He was a Russian artist in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I love his dancing, searching line mixed in with bold marks and wanted to experiment with that. A few Saturdays ago I had some extra time and got to attend the morning portrait co-op at Studio 103 so did some experimenting…
Our model that day was local musician Jack Klatt. For this head study I used American Master’s paper (grey), General’s Layout Pencil for lightly plotting in shapes, and Derwent Ivory Black Drawing Pencil plus a little Conté white drawing pencil for touches of highlights.
The paper was luxuriously smooth to work on and the Layout Pencil marks erased fairly well without beating up the paper (though I did use a light touch to begin with). The Derwent pencil didn’t erase very well but dabbing at it with a kneaded eraser did lighten marks a bit.