Nasser Hussain

Today’s portrait was almost entirely done upside down.  The initial pencil drawing was done upside down using a grid.  I turned the picture the right way up briefly to check I’d got a likeness, then put it back upside down and started in the markers.

As is my wont, I started with some greys on the darker areas, just to get down some values and some structure.  I then went on to the fun stage where I added more interesting colours and, at the same time, darkened all the greys from my initial values plan.

I think with the greys I should have stopped at my second darkest today rather than going all the way to black – Nasser looks like he’s been a bit heavy with the Just For Men.  For the interesting colours, today’s flesh tones were made up of the greys, the flesh coloured markers and a bit of blue pearl.  Maybe I’ve been watching too many Liron Yankonsky videos on YouTube but a lot of today’s colours were motivated more my temperature than by colours I could see in the source photo.  So where, for example I could see greens in the source photo, rather than going for greens in the flesh tones, I’d translate the colour to “cool” and put on blue pearl.  It’s interesting to compare these colours to those I used for Adil Rashid.  I th8s the Rashid colours are more interesting.  They’re also much more risky to use, though, as they’re highly saturated and can easily ruin a painting if not used carefully.

I think I’ve ended up with a reasonable likeness today.  The distinctive mouth and head shape are spot on.  The hair is too dark, though, and the nearer eye isn’t quite right.  But Nasser’s going up for sale.