Portrait of Marilyn Monroe

Hi and welcome to my blog. Here, you will find portraits of celebrities in graphite and charcoal -- from the legends of the silver screen in the 30's; the glamorous actors and actresses and singers of the 40's and 50's, to some of today's new icons of movies and music. I hope you'll keep me company in bringing to you these personalities in the entertainment business. The first celebrity to shine in our spotlight is... Marilyn Monroe.

                                          (Image is from Doctormacro)

The image above is a publicity shot for the film 'The Seven Year Itch'. It shows Marilyn in a familiar pose standing on a subway grill. A very popular actress in the 50's ( with emphasis on very), she began her career as a photographer and artist's model before she made it big in Hollywood. She first played bit parts in such classic films as 'All About Eve' with Bette Davis and Ann Baxter and 'Love Happy' starring the hilarious Marx Brothers. Some of you might know that Marilyn Monroe is known especially for portraying blonde and sexy but somewhat dumb women, as evident in her comedies like 'The Seven Year Itch', 'How to Marry a Millionaire' and 'Some Like it Hot'.

I started doing 8x10 inch portraits of glamorous movie stars about two years ago primarily to train myself to draw portraits. I now have a handful, so I thought I'd share it with you.

                                                

 8 x 10 inches (20 x 25 cm)

Graphite pencil on Canson Grain

In my earlier drawings, I use mainly graphite pencils. But now a days, I tend to favor brushes dipped in graphite or charcoal powder to apply my tones. Marilyn Monroe is one of  my earlier celebrity portraits. For this one, I chose a picture of her in the days when she was not yet as popular as we know her today. I hope you enjoy the post and will tune in again next week.