Muhammad Ali

This one has taken me a couple of days. It’s a coloured pencil portrait of Muhammad Ali. I’m not a great boxing fan, to be honest, but Ali was one of the most iconic sportspeople of all time and was admired for his work both inside and outside the ring. He’s worth a portrait.

All of my coloured pencil portraits start out the same way. I put down a pencil outline using a grid, then think about where I want the darkest darks. I then cover the darks with four thin layers of colour (two blues, a green and a red, the same four every time). These dark areas give me something off which to hang the rest of the painting. After that, I just have fun, adding more thin layers of colour, some over the darks and some to start filling out the rest of the painting. The rule is that everything develops together: the darks can’t become too dark. Imparted to everything else but everything else mustn’t be allowed to catch up with the darks. Eventually the paper starts protesting that it’s full in the dark areas and that’s a sign that the end is near. Once I’m happy with the non-dark areas, I blend everything with a paper stump and that’s me done.

Over the last couple of days, and particular today, I’ve been trying to observe my source photo as accurately as possible and to replicate all the muscular shadows and shorts creases as closely as my skills will allow. I used a wide range of colours in the boxing gloves (including complementary greens in the dark areas) and in the skin. It annoys me when I see artists on Portrait Artist Of The Year mixing up browns to use as skin tones rather than going with something more impressionistic. And my skin tones here are a mix of loads of layers of different colours. There may be a couple of browns in there but also lots of reds, yellows, blues, oranges and purples.

The final painting might not be “the greatest” but has enough about it for it to be worth putting up for sale. The price can be found here. The musculature and shorts are great and the background colour is just dark enough that I find myself searching for faces in the crowd. It’s the likeness that holds this one back a bit for me but there’s a lot to feel positive about.