100 Heads: Head #16

This is a copy of the drawing Portrait of a Young Lady of the Court of the Infanta Isabella at Brussels by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). When I copy, I do not mindlessly copy using a grid. Rather, I construct the head using one or more of the methods described in books on portraiture and figure drawing. For this drawing, I put the head in a cube in an attempt to get the correct perspective on the features. I think about the underlying structure of the skull and muscles and study how the artist renders this structure. I also am studying the facial features (i.e., eye, nose, mouth, ear) and seeing how the artist renders each one.

I plan to re-do these master copies periodically to help gauge my progress.

4B pencil in my Strathmore 400 Series Sketchbook.