386 Portrait of Charles Michel, the Prime Minister of Belgium done in fineliner and watercolor

2015-03-11aThis is Charles Michel, the Prime Minister of Belgium

This time I started out with the fineliner (or pen.. what’s it called?) to first make the drawing and then I put on the watercolor. The ink has the disadvantage of not being erasable, so you can’t correct your mistakes. You can’t conceal it with watercolor either! So there are a number of things that I would have been able to change if I had started out in pencil – but that’s the game I suppose. I like ink sketches a lot – but they’re demanding. Watercolor and ink seems like a good marriage, but the pen is a little dominating, and to me it seems that the watercolor falls a bit in the background as “coloration”. It’s more like a drawing than it’s a painting.

This guy has got a big, wide smile in almost every photo i could find. There also seems to be some controversy with him and French fries, but I’m not sure what it is.

Here’s the photo
And here’s that link to my “Rulers of the World” page that’s growing bigger and bigger

25 thoughts on “386 Portrait of Charles Michel, the Prime Minister of Belgium done in fineliner and watercolor”

  1. I love the colors in this! They really match very nicely! Using fineliner or marker gives the whole thing a feel of rather being an illustration than a painting, I think so too. At least I´d rather use them for illustrations than for paintings. But I love this style! And you really got it well!

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  2. It’s definitely a different look, but I like it.
    Do you erase a lot when you work with pencil? I almost never erase; I just draw over what I don’t like or start over.

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    • I sometimes erase if I’ve got the proportions wrong and placed an eye wrongly for examole.. Then i can’t just draw on top of it, but when it’s the general lines and contours, i just move it a bit around and go darker when I’ve found the “final” place to mark it down. It’s a bit harder to do it this sketchy way with the fineliner. For example the eye in this one.

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  3. I really like this one. If you feel the ink is dominating, you can try a finer pen like 01 / .005 or try to have more economy with your ink lines. You can still “draw” with watercolor if need be and use more pigment to bring out some values. Great work!

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    • It’s a 0.05 already. I don’t know if they make them any thinner – I think i need to explore what a “gap” in a line can do instead of working with long strokes. Thanks for your comment !

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