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As with most portraiture (but not all, by any means), drawing realistic portraits of children has two main aspects we need to get right: the resemblance to the child and the beauty, life and magic of their face.
Artistically, the resemblance is the easy part and it’s just a matter of getting the dimensions right, so from the photo we use a craft, similar to silk screening, to get the basic measurements of the face. This way we get something poor and unmarketable, but that provides us with the adequate dimensions of the face of the child and therefore, the basic resemblance.
From there, with a style proudly unique to this group of artists(1), we start bringing to the drawing the marvel of a child’s face and the magic of their splendour. This is the hardest, most creative part and it’s done only with pencils, sepia bars and dry powders from well-known commercial trademarks —such as CARAN d'ACHE from Switzerland and Cetacolor from Austria— mixed with a lot of talent and years of experience.
Recently (June-07) one of our fine photographers asked an artist in the studio how long it took to make a specific drawing. With simplicity he said, fifteen years of daily hard work. That’s the key; discipline, experience and talent.
When the drawing is finished, we fix it with common hair-lacquer. If this were not done, your portrait might smudge or slowly fade with time.
We know we are far away from most of our customers but we also know that Barcelona is a trendy travelling spot, so if by any chance you are in town, please feel free to contact us and visit the studio. We’ll take you for coffee as well.
(1)Description made by a sculptor (friend of ours) to his colleagues, after visiting the studio: “The artists work in a different manner than I would have expected. You see, they start off by putting down a layer of fine chalk powder and they take away from that, using dry paint brushes and a thing that looks like a pencil made out of compressed cotton wool. So first, they’re drawing in reverse!!! taking coloured material away, which is how they are able to get these lovely soft highlights in the skin and hair. Then what they do is work on top of this with pencils to get all the detail in the face, hair and clothes.” |
