Today I hit an important milestone in this project: I completed No. 25, marking the half way point in this series of fifty portraits. I have to say that I myself am surprised that I’ve gotten to this point already; I had fully anticipated for these drawings to take a lot longer. A large part of this is that I’ve picked up the pace for these portraits over the past month, and that I’ve become much more efficient with my drawing technique. I’ve strengthened my technique with the etching ink which has paid off in terms of being able to do less work with the exacto knife and lithographic crayon. Right now I have seven portraits in progress that I’m going to try and complete before the semester starts. Then it will be a matter of a final push to finish the last eighteen portraits.
I also worked on No. 32 today, working the first pass of etching ink. This portrait was a challenge in that the majority of the face is entirely in shadow, thus relying on the wrinkles in the forehead and the brow to be expressive.
