Donkey Work

This was another chance to do a charcoal portrait.  I did this one at school where I had the opportunity to have a model sit for me for 3 hours.  Sadly I didn’t have 3 hours as I was late!  I gave myself the challenge of drawing from a donkey.  This is a lower bench that you can sit on so that when drawing you can get very close up from underneath the model.  This makes it quite a bit harder as the angle is very difficult.  The usual way of mapping out a face completely changes here.  The nose and eyes and mouth are much closer together and all the shapes change.  Personally I really prefer portraits from this angle – there is something rather grand about the pose.  It can be really hard to get this right.  I wish I had another couple of hours on it.  I love the mood of charcoal portraits.