“If the eyes are the window to the soul, then perception is the world the soul lives in.”
Amy Jalapeno
This blog is a reflection on people as they are experienced, not just as they appear. From fleeting expressions to deeply etched stories, each portrait is an attempt to translate presence into paint, charcoal, light, or line.
Portraits are often seen as simple likenesses—but for an artist, they are far more than that. They are quiet conversations, shared moments, and emotional records pressed into a single frame. When I create a portrait, I’m not only observing a face; I’m listening for what lives behind the eyes, in the posture, in the spaces where words are never spoken.
Through these posts, I’ll share insights into my creative process, the challenges of capturing individuality, and the moments when a portrait feels complete—not because it’s perfect, but because it feels honest. This is a space for curiosity, observation, and respect for the complexity of people. Every face has a story, and portraiture is my way of listening.
People are not my favourite subject to draw and I make no secret of preferring a paper cut on my cornea to doing people portraits. Give me animals and wildlife any day. However the exception to this rule is exposing a fleeting expression in an ordinary moment that makes me pause and imagine their story. In these artworks of many different mediums, each piece tells its own story and the challenge is given to the viewer to experience a life through a moment. My work is inspired by a genuine interest in Indigenous cultures and I am deeply interested in the preservation and understanding of traditional cultural attire so you will see most portraits are tribal.
To get the high level of detail in any hyper realistic drawings, it is essential to source high quality, high resolution reference images whether you subscribe to the numerous websites out there where high quality images can be purchased and downloaded, or you take your own. I typically find the longest process is often researching for the perfect base image (although that could also be because I get inspired by several at once).
Tribes from the Ethiopian regions are my absolute favourite subjects. Their beauty and natural materials in their traditional dress never cease to inspire me. The Hamer woman (above) is my most recent piece. The Omar Valley child (right) is my first pastel portrait, and the beginning of my love of tribal portraiture in this medium.
The Hamer people use red ochre and natural materials in their traditional art and culture. This is part of their unique way of decorating themselves. I needed to replicate the colours found in a mixture of red ochre clays, butter and ash which is the mixture used to coat the hair braids. I used several layers of umbers for the brown and red based muds, but I used sienna and ochres for the facial adornments. My techniques ranged from the thin underlayers blended into the paper using predominantly pastel pencils for accuracy doing the hair, and as the dreadlock layers were built, I used ground soft pastel pressed into the top layers to create texture, before again returning with a sharp pastel pencil to add the fine loose hair details.
This young boy from one of the many diverse Omo valley tribes is the subject of my first pastel portrait drawing. I was drawn to the focus on the child, yet linked to the safety of his mother. Young children have such intense, curious gazes. Truly I was winging it as an artist, purely enjoying the process and exploring the beautiful buttery blending of soft pastels combined with the delicate details pastel pencils. Pastel pencils render additional control for fine details such as the hair, beading and animal hides. I selected a neutral sand coloured background with a medium tooth, as the background colour will have a profound effect on the finished artwork. As a pastel drawing, this also means similar to sketching, I won’t be filling in the background. In contrast pastel paintings utilise the whole area of the canvas.
Chocolate was the base colour as it has the rich red undertones for this tribe’s particular skin tones, but it was also mixed with Burnt Carmine, Elderberry, Burnt Earth and various Umbers. The beauty of working with pastels is the process – applying the layers, gradually blending and building the colour but also being mindful of how much pigment the paper tooth can comfortably hold. My biggest tip? Don’t be tempted to overwork your pastel drawing.
Some artists lay down a colour, blend then add another layer. I tend to lay down several then blend together for large pieces.
How wonderful are elderly humans with wisdom, experience and stories etched in their faces. This lady is a Burmese Myanma elder. This piece was my first charcoal portrait. I cannot stress enough that if you want to try something – a new medium, a subject matter you don’t usually do – the just DO IT.
I usually use the grid system for accuracy when I am doing particularly realistic pieces. Others I will loosely draw. Honestly though, if you use a grid, trace, projector or draw… just do it. The art comes with how you express yourself through the mediums, and the techniques to achieve the look you are seeking.
Canson Mi-Teintes paper was my paper of choice as it has mid-range colours that sit in the 50/50 range between black and white. This piece is a fabulous example of why paper colour is so important as the colour will show through, and can be used to create mood. In this case – balance and harmony, in other cases contrasting colours may be used to create drama and excitement. Her clothing had so many interesting textures to capture.
After my pastel of the Omar Tribal boy, I completed a rare portrait commission for a wedding photo to be in pastels, and which eventually winged its way to Zimbabwe. I don’t usually do backgrounds, but if I do I use a portrait blur and bokeh effect to maintain the focus on the subjects.
Scribbling is a unique, very careless yet expressive way of drawing where the technique is literally scribbling movements that are applied with varying pressures, and letting the pen roam across the paper with minimal lifting, focusing on some areas to create shadows and merely passing through where light is hitting the subject. A small series of scribble drawings can be seen here.
I find that all work at some stage goes through the ugly phase – great example below left. This is the point where it is beneficial to concentrate on the tones and shapes, and take away the brain’s attempts to make sense of the drawing as a whole face in this case. By doing this, once stepping back, it is amazing how it pulls together. Interestingly this gentleman’s face was not naturally symmetrical so I had to ensure I didn’t try to correct his true facial features. And then there was his beard. There are approximately ten layers in the beard as the shadows and overlays of fine hairs built his beard in all its fullness. Now that process was seriously cathartic.
