Graphite on Strathmore charcoal paper. This drawing is unframed.
Drawn from life over eighteen hours, and with the guidance of acclaimed portrait artist Patrick Byrnes, this is Effie.
Maddy created this drawing as an exercise with one single 'H' graphite pencil. It therefore has a fairly compressed range of values (i.e. no chiaroscuro - think 'the opposite of Caravaggio'!) so the variation between the lights and shadows has to be incredibly gentle and subtle to create any sense of form (i.e. three-dimensionality), particularly in the areas of the head that catch the most light like the forehead and tip of the nose.
The gallery of images above demonstrates the progress of the drawing from initial shape block-in through to rendering the form of the portrait using careful gradations between light and shadow.
