I was commissioned to create this family portrait as a christening present for them from the baby’s godmother. She wanted to give the young couple something very special as a keepsake and a christening gift. The photograph was beautiful and the only one I had to work from. Sometimes professional photos are more challenging to work from than one taken spontaneously as a lot of detail is edited away. The blacks were very black in the reference so I made the portrait a little softer. I wanted to make the portrait special and unique.
The drawing is 25 x 20 cm in size. I worked with graphite pencils on Fabriano 5 paper. I recently made a slight switch with my pencils from Staedtler Mars Lumograph to Staedtler Mars Lumograph Black. The black pencils contain a mixture of graphite and charcoal. This means they draw darker due to the charcoal content, but can still be sharpened for detailed work as graphite. I am really happy with these because the darks are much deeper now and they don’t have a sheen. The pencils are a little hard to get here in Ireland, but I order them in bulk to set myself for a while.
I took some close up photos of the finished drawing with and without the mount. The client was delighted with the final portrait.
Finished drawing 
Mounted drawing 
Client photo 
Drawing on paper