Colorful Portrait of an Old Man with a Beard

This is a colorful portrait drawing of an old man with a beard. Bold colored markers were used to fill the paper with abstract shapes and lines. The expressive under drawing created the foundation for the semi-translucent portrait drawing over the top. Pens were used to sketch the placement of the man’s eyes, nose, mouth, beard and hair. Bright red and green marker colors block in the shapes of the face, with black and blue used for the hair and eyes. Brown adds the suggestion of shoulders. Grey markers added subtle shadows and depth to the facial features. A white gel pen was used to carve out highlights from the bold color underlay, notably the eyes and strands of hair. A thicker white paint marker was used to add translucent areas of highlights over the skin and beard. The man gazes out past the viewer with a concerned expression amid a vibrant and expressive halo of color and lines. The translucent nature of the medium provides a spectral atmosphere that allows the layers of the subject and surrounding abstractions to move from the foreground to the background interchangeably throughout the portrait drawing.