Portrait of Ingrid Bergman and Work in Progress

The bright light of our spotlight shines on this week's featured celebrity.... Ingrid Bergman.

                                     8 x 10 inches (20 x 25 cm)

                            Graphite pencil on Arches Hot Pressed
                                           Watercolor paper

Faith said that this paper seems to do wonders to her drawings. I just had to try it and see for myself. Well, I did give it a try and I can say I'm pretty pleased with the result. Yep, it really does make wonders to drawings, but I wouldn't have believed it until I've seen it with my own eyes. The paper has two surfaces with different textures - one side seems to have some pattern while the other is quite smooth with just the right amount of tooth - which is perfect for drawing.

I tried a different approach as suggested by my artist-sister -- don't finish the bust and just shape into a "v". Also, in some of my portraits, I partly use regular bathroom paper to blend the skin tones. I found it works well on Canson Grain but on Arches, this method of blending can make the paper all fuzzy. Nevertheless, it's still a nice drawing paper, even though it's more expensive than my usual Canson.

                                       (Image is from Doctormacro)

                                Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart

                                             in "Casablanca"

Here's a little about our featured celebrity: Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress before she made it to Hollywood. She was quite popular in the 40's in films like "Casablanca", "Gaslight", "Anastasia" and "For Whom the Bell Tolls". A versatile actress, she won multiple Academy Awards in her career. She portrayed a variety of roles like in the human drama, "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" where she played a British missionary in China. One of her most enduring films is the black and white classic "Casablanca" (with Humphrey Bogart) where the romantic song 'As Time Goes By' was originally sung. The scene where her role asked Sam, the piano player, to play the song is equally memorable.

Before I say goodbye for now, here are the few progress shots that I talked about last Sunday.

In the image above, the face is almost complete. I always start a portrait with the eyes. I don't know why, maybe because they are the central feature on the face. Somehow I feel when the eyes have been established, I can determine if I've captured the likeness.

In my earlier portraits, I draw the hair strand by strand with a mechanical pencil but now I establish each lock first and then later I add some highlights and shadows.
                                        

Here, more hair is drawn and also the bust is almost complete.
                                            

                                                                          
And here's the finished portrait.