I recently tried drawing on black paper – it feels like drawing a “negative portrait”
It means that instead of going from light to dark, I worked from dark to light this time.

It was totally exciting, because I was only drawing the light, since the shadow was already there.

Here are my results: I’m particularly happy with Ian 🙂

Have you ever tried drawing something on black paper before? Feel free to leave a comment!

Credits:

Ian McKellen
Photo: Andy Gotts

Nikola Selezinko
Photo: Agata Serge

If you’re planning on drawing on black paper, you should know that the quality of your supplies is really important. Please do not use any cheap white colouring pencils, because you will most certainly be disappointed. To achieve decent results you will need a very opaque white crayon or chalk. I can say from my experience that oil-based colouring pencils (like Faber Castell Polychromos) will get you the best results, because they are far more opaque than regular colouring pencils. I’ve listed some of my favourite white chalks and crayons here – to help you find the right supplies!

Materials for drawing on black paper:

• Black paper
• Daler Rowney white soft pastel crayon
• Conté a Paris pastel pencils
• Faber-Castell Pitt Graphite Pure 9B
• Faber Castell artist pastel white
• Faber-Castell Polychromos white

Visit me on Instagram to see more portraits like these! Or hop over to my Pinterest to check out my boards.

Wishing you lots of inspiration!
Sabrina

In this article I’ll show you HOW TO DRAW A PORTRAIT

This post Drawing on Black Paper was first published on Illustration & Drawing Blog.

Some time has passed since my last post, but I have not been idle. I have discovered a lot of new things in the past few months and some new projects and collaborations are in progress. At the same time I also took the time to continue working on my skills and made some studies. Here you can see a portrait drawing, which I completed at the beginning of this year. Drawing this portrait was very difficult at the beginning – but I found a surprisingly easy way to deal with it!

I actually started the drawing a few months earlier, but wasn’t satisfied with it. It sometimes happens to me that when I concentrate on a drawing for a few hours, I suddenly become “blind”. Although I see that something is not 100% correct, I can not depict what it is. What helps me in this situation is to put the drawing aside for a few days, weeks, or in this case months, and return to it later on. Then suddenly everything makes sense again and I can work effectively on the parts that I want to improve. 🙂

To the artists among you: Do you know this situation?

Materials:
I used Strathmore Toned Tan paper, white chalk, various pencils (HB-9B), Faber Castell Polychromos and a blending stump for this portrait.

Here are two of my most popular drawing tutorials you might find interesting:

I am also on Pinterest, sharing my latest drawings, making-of videos, tutorials and drawing inspirations with you! Make sure to check out my collection

This post How to deal with a Difficult Drawing was first published on Illustration & Drawing Blog.