Vin Ganapathy begins a portrait by carefully studying his subject and
when he feels ready, he draws the first line.
He spends as much time looking at his subject as he does looking down at his drawing
VIN: I don't do the traditional way of drawing, of creating an oval first.
She has a very square looking face so I started with her jaw
His lines are confident never too scratchy or sketchy never to bold
just elegant and right. He looks for landmarks and begins to define the edges
of the face which he'll use to guide his proportions and to place the features
inside them VIN: All of these things around her face
are basically a frame.
He begins to build up her hair using a water-soluble brush pen
VIN:The hair is the funnest part especially in a portrait
Sometimes he'll draw individual hairs but generally he's looking for large
shapes that pull together the face
Now he uses a micron pen which is waterproof. It won't be affected when he
uses his water brush to add tone and breakdown the water-soluble
brush pen ink.
Accessories like her beautiful dangling earrings become another way to establish landmarks
and to further define the frame that will go around her features
When he feels like he understands her jawline and the shape of her head,
he decides how he's going to place the mouth and the chin
He uses a very light touch to place her nose
Next he begins to draw the eye region but first he defines the eyebrows
VIN: Eyebrows are pretty fun to draw too because you can do light starting points
and there's always seems to be the thick part right here and then it usually goes
light again
Now he knows how to place the eyes.
He looks at the shape of the negative space below the eyebrow and below the
eyelid
H e places the second eye again carefully drawing the shape of the top of the
eyelid first. Vin never draws what he thinks is there but only what he can
actually see himself. He goes back and forth between studying his subject and
doing minor revisions and alterations to the exact shape of the eyelids
Then he adds tone to the irises which brings them alive
His water brush activates the ink from the brush pen and a paper towel helps to blend it.
VIN: Instead of using a line - for her eyelids I'll usually use a water
brush to pull out some of the ink and create the rest of the nose or the
shadow that's in her eyes or her eyelids Now he comes back with his fine micron
pen to add the final touches and details
And then he comes back with his water brush adding subtle areas of tone that
he blots out time and again to make sure that nothing stands out too strongly.
That's the key to Vin Ganapathy's work: Careful deliberate observation so that
he gets every line right where it should be and then the slow and subtle layering
of tone to achieve dimension and accuracy and drawings that look alive
VIN:I am finishing up with a large brush pen. Again with the hair I really like using
large swabs of ink. I usually do this with the hair. I think this is finished.
A black-and-white portrait. There it is in ten minutes the portrait's done and
the likeness is stunning