Exercise (3) Portrait From Memory or the Imagination. Project (6) The Face.

I was looking forward to this exercise, 

I like to work from the imagination,

and trying to translate onto paper what is in my head.

I started by thinking it would be fun to draw someone from literature, 

I decided to try my hand at depicting the character 

Ebenezer Scrooge, 

from the book A Christmas Carol 

by Charles Dickens.

I am a fan of Charles Dickens, and I am very interested in illustration. 

I hand a strong image in my head of what I thought he looked like, from the extract.

"Oh!  But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind- stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!  Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.  

The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice.  A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin.  He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas."

I love this passage, 

as it doesn't describe how he looks.... but rather how he might look.

First try, looks too flat, especially his cheek.

Fountain pen and water-brush.

Fountain pen and water-brush.

I like some of the marks I achieved on this drawing,

as I have said before pen and wash is one of my favourite things to work in, and I really enjoyed doing this piece.

the background got a bit mucked up, as I had originally drawn in the top of his head too big, and had to shrink it.

The eye got too dark as well.

Wasn't sure how far to push the evilness of the character, as I wanted him to look reasonably believable, he is slightly exaggerated, but not, I think, beyond the reality. 

Close up.

Come to think of it, my image is similar to Arthur Rackham's Scrooge, 

I love Arthur Rackham's work, he is, without a doubt  my favourite illustrator and one of my favourite artists. 

He is a great influence over my Art. 

Arthur Rackham, A Christmas Carol.