I did this double-portrait for a friend of mine who was recently married. Of course, because you’re an intelligent human being who knows how to operate a computer, you’ve probably already guessed that it’s the bride with her new husband. *Cheers* to them!
As a reference for portraits, I usually use photos that I’ve taken myself. But for this drawing, I actually “combined” two other photos that were taken at the reception by the professional photographer that they hired (I didn’t end up having my camera that night). The two photos that I used were similar; I pretty much just switched the angles here and there, and tweaked a few things to make them both have the most desirable facial expression from either of the two photos. Confused? Well, simply put, I swapped some heads around.
I really liked the look of visible pencil marks, so I purposely did not “smudge” the shading to make a smooth transition between shades of gray. That way, it has a bit of movement and sort of “vibrates” as you look at it. A regular old photo just sits there looking representative, whereas the rhythm of the pencil marks and cross-hatching makes your eyes linger a bit longer. I mainly just used plain ol’ pencil, but I added some Prismacolor to the background as well. It’s done on Bristol (a slightly more rigid paper with a very smooth surface) and sealed with a spray fixative. And there you have it!
(As always, click on the image above to enlarge it.)