Tyrone and Elina Wells

ENLARGED view is about the same size as the drawing

WIPs

Reference Photo Credit goes to:
Danny Vasquez
[link]

I FINALLY finished my commissioned drawing for Tyrone Wells and his wife Elina.

First about the drawing...
SIZE: 13 x15 inches (edge to edge) depending on how they mat the borders? I left the top end open and adjustable for matting and framing, not knowing what they'd like best, or what may fit a certain frame size.
TIME: close to 20 hours! (Longest EVER spent on a single work!)
PAPER: Strathmore Bristol SMOOTH 300 series drawing stock
PENCILS: Staedtler Mars Lumograph H, HB, F, B, 2B, 3B, 4B and my new favorite toy, a Pentel 0.5 mm mechanical pencil using B & 2B for the "stray hairs" and for redefining tight spots and final adjustments to imperfections.

I had to photograph this drawing, because it is too large to fit in my scanner, so it lacks some details as a result. As we all know, originals are better than photos or scans?

Photo vs Drawing


About them: I met Tyrone and his wife, Elina at 2 concerts (October 22 & 24th 2010) because my son (Andrew Belle) was touring with him. They are both singer-songwriters, who recently got married. I started to draw his photo from his cd cover on the 22nd. See that drawing here

When we saw him again 2 days later, he liked my work, and asked if I would be interested in drawing him and his wife, and he held up his laptop with the photo, which struck me right away as inspirational. Both for it's contrast, design, facial expressions and because I really like them! (Google Tyrone Wells and/or check out his music on iTunes and Youtube)

Check out his myspace here: [link] and give Sea Breeze a listen?

I'm also posting separate cropped sections of each of them alone, as well as that cool microphone! View them here...
:thumb185126036:
On a personal note: I put 100% effort into this one! I held NOTHING back, and even when I "thought" it was finished, I spent a few more hours with a magnifying glass and my mechanical pencil sharpening, and redefining the dark areas. As a result, I consider it to be my BEST work to date?

I get asked all the time, "how did u get the dark areas so black?" Long story I explain in great detail in my TIP GUIDE: [link]

CHALLENGES:
1) I have never done a complete side-view profile, and was worried about the ability to "capture" someones eye from the side. Think about your eyes being different from the other 6.5 BILLION on this earth?!?
2) Going so large. I have spent 2 years and 150 portraits to discover the perfect balance between size and time required (6" faces). This is my largest drawing to date. I had to tape sections of paper over the areas I had not yet drawn on, to protect them from getting touched. And then when I was almost done with him, I taped him up to protect that area while I drew her, and then covered both while I drew the microphone & background.
3) Ears: I always seem to mess up the ears, but was happy with this one?
4) High Res: Of course we look for the highest resolution photos as a reference, but the one he gave me was SO high res, I felt I had to draw the pores on his head!? I did draw a few hairs I saw in his ear (click DOWNLOAD to see)
5) Hair: As you know, I don't like drawing hair. It takes too much time. I killed at least 1 full 2B on hers, but made up for it with his!
6) His shirt: My portraits concentrate on faces only, so therefore I don't have practice with clothes. To make this worse, he had a ti-died shirt on, which would require a lot of details (2 hours alone?) I got his permission to change his shirt color. At first I thought I'd just go with black, but then started pulling out some graphite with my kneaded eraser and I like the texture look, so I just worked on it more?
7) Blending such a large background
8) I thought, "oh, it's two profiles, that's kinda like ONE whole face?" WRONG!

VIEW THE REFERENCE PHOTO AND A FEW STEP-SCANS HERE: [link]