Encounter the unusually beautiful portrait drawing by @yuliasybbotina. This traditional artist establishes sculptural planes to capture volume and deploys chiaroscuro to increase contrast in her portrayals.
Next, see how she uses contour to interpret and intensify her subject’s likeness. Be it a monochrome, dichromatic or varicoloured drawing. Further, find out what constitutes the basis for a sculpturesque portrait drawing by @yuliasybbotina. Finally, let us experience how this portraitist skilfully leads the eye of the viewer across the three-dimensional presence of the sitter captured on paper.
Here is a table of contents for easy navigation.
Table of contents
- A dichromatic portrait drawing of Salvador Dalí by @yuliasybbotina
- A polychromatic, interpretative portrait drawing of Frida Kahlo by @yuliasybbotina
- The line is the basis for a sculpturesque portrait drawing by @yuliasybbotina
- A hallmark portrait drawing of a man wearing a hat by @yuliasybbotina
And now, let us contemplate the unusually beautiful portrait drawing by @yuliasybbotina.
1) A dichromatic portrait drawing of Salvador Dalí by @yuliasybbotina
Where to begin our journey through the vast oeuvre of such a prolific artist as @yuliasybbotina? Her portrait drawing of Spanish Surrealist painter Salvador Dalí provides a revealing starting point. It is a likeness drawn after a famed photograph capturing Dalí’s eccentric, signature gaze. We are looking at a dichromatic drawing with a white and a dark sepia or black pencil on ochre-toned paper.
Remarkably, this portrait drawing is not a manual, photorealistic reproduction but rather an interpretation of the source photograph. In other words, in this rendition, @yuliasybbotina is not merely copying the two-dimensional reference by hand. Instead, she is aiming to retrieve some of the plasticity and three-dimensional data that the photographer’s eyes would have seen looking at the live face of Salvador Dalí.
This portrait drawing establishes sculptural planes to convey volume.
The drawing features a slightly more pronounced lower lip and the chiselled-out, energetic chin of the great Surrealist painter. The portrait’s line work and the shading convey a tangible, sculptural volume. Further, the hatching on Dalí’s right jaw bone lends subtle directionality to the side plane, which follows the underlying anatomical structure. The sitter’s right temple meets his forehead at a conspicuous angle. In the well-known reference photograph, that edge is less prominent, as Dalí’s temple follows a smoother curvature around the skull. However, precisely this added demarcation lends @yuliasybbotina’s portrait drawing a more physical presence.
A bold outline and chiaroscuro add contrast to this portrait drawing.
Note the broad, white pencil strokes lining Dalí’s silhouette. They follow not only the dark collar, throat and hairline. But they even border the clear and distinct black outline of Dalí’s left cheek. These white pencil marks function like inverted, black outlines in Cloisonnism. That is to say, white instead of dark contours separate the flat form of the figure from the depiction’s ground. Similarly, the white pencil outline exemplifies a well-deployed use of chiaroscuro, placing light versus dark areas to guide our eyes across a drawing richer in contrasts. The Italian adjective chiaro means “light”, and oscuro translates as “dark”.
2) A polychromatic, interpretative portrait drawing of Frida Kahlo by @yuliasybbotina
The same techniques are at work when @yuliasybbotina engages in a polychromatic drawing. Here is a portrait of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo drawn after a famous photograph. The colour palette expands beyond white, sienna or sepia, and black to include a warm ultramarine blue, crimson red, pink and some light ochre for the skin tones. In like manner as the portrait drawing of Salvador Dalí, @yuliasybbotina delivers a vivid interpretation, a variation on the photograph, as opposed to a mere photorealistic reproduction by hand.
Carved-out angularity lends tangibility to the portrait drawing.
The emphasis is on establishing sculptural planes that make up the head. While the chin and lips stay close to the photographic reference, the nose, temple and zygomatic bone are far more pronounced. That round yet pointed protrusion on Frida’s left cheek is a cardinal point, a hinge demarcating the intersection between the frontal plane of her face and the side plane of her head. Eager to guide our eye to this conclusion, @yuliasybbotina accentuates this pivotal corner with a smooth stroke in over-saturated crimson red.
Moreover, the prominent definition of the angles in the cheekbone vertically lines up with the angularity at Frida’s left temple. Sheer shading of the temple meets the pale frontal plane of her forehead at the middle point of the outer arch of her left eyebrow. The reference photo lacks the resulting oblique division line in the brightest ochre hue. Likewise, the bridge of the nose and its side intersect at a white line in this portrait drawing. In contradistinction to the original photograph, the nasal bridge is drawn in dark pinks to distinguish this plane from the sand-coloured side of the nose.
The sharp contrast of light and dark yields a vivid portrait drawing
Note the reflected light beneath Frida’s chin which is not present in the source photograph. Lucid ochre strokes border the yaw bone and contrast sharply with its dark outlines. In the same way, dim blue and black background areas meet pale skin tones, while light blue background tinting adjoins Frida’s dark hair. Here, we see the technique of chiaroscuro at work. In other words, the interplay between light and dark areas. With this, @yuliasybbotina gives us a more tangible visual experience than the referenced photograph.
3) The line is the basis for a sculpturesque portrait drawing by @yuliasybbotina
There are two main approaches to drawing: one emphasises the line, and the other focuses on mass. Now, @yuliasybbotina deploys lines with the sure hand of a professional to capture the volume of an object of study. A great example is this portrait drawing delineated with a mesh of lines. The lines follow the surface curvatures and connect like a physical, sculpted wire frame model or a three-dimensional rendering in a vector graphics program.
A grid of lines establishes the three-dimensional presence of the sitter.
Whether drawn from life or derived from a reference photograph, this portrait drawing allows the artist to comprehend the three-dimensional presence of the shape under investigation. The sitter’s guise and details, like facial features, get expressed positively with convex lines rather than negative space and concavity. In other words, the form gets represented in terms of presence, not absence. Consequently, a sculptor could build this head and face, referencing the sculptural planes established by the grid of lines.
Thus, this portrait drawing would lay the groundwork for a painting, a sculpture or a more ornate illustration. The latter could study other aspects of visual appearances, such as lighting and shading. In any case, this is a complete drawing that stands by itself. And yet, it is only the first stage of the finished portrait drawing that we see below in the image to the right. @yuliasybbotina did draw that refined likeness on top of the preliminary depiction. Minor discrepancies between the two testify to a continuous corrective process that comes with experience and mastery of drawing.
The wireframe mesh paved the way for a convincing portrait drawing.
The earlier decisive line drawing enabled the portraitist to carve out the surface attributes of the old lady’s head more elaborately. It is a tedious process of mapping out the physical boundaries of the outward appearance of the face of the model. But, throughout the exercise, the portraitist acquired a clearer understanding of what areas to shade. Accordingly, @yuliasybbotina so profoundly conveys the angular presence of the Zygomatic bone. The sharpness of this bone almost pierces the surface of the sumptuous, sagging convexity of the woman’s left cheek.
The edge of the Zygomatic bone, i.e. the cheekbone, marks the intersection of two planes. From chin to forehead, the portrayed face rests on a frontal plane, albeit a convex surface. That plane intersects at roughly a 90-degree angle with the head’s side plane spanning from the left jaw bone and temple to the ear. In short, like in old master drawings, @yuliasybbotina conceives the entire human skull as inscribed in a cuboid, i.e. a rectangular box.
@yuliasybbotina uses chiaroscuro to accentuate the volume
Given these points, we have come to appreciate the chiaroscuro, the interplay of light and dark areas in portrait drawings by @yuliasybbotina. The dark hatching in the background makes the lady’s right cheek and forehead stand out from the drawing sheet. Also, the subtle and consistent light reflections on the left side of her nose, her left temple and her left cheek accentuate the volume of the facial features. Those fill lights contrast sharply with the dark shadow bands curving around the lady’s left jaw, chin, nostril, Supra alar crease, cheek and temple. Note the elegant representation of the old lady’s left ear. A few broken lines define its outline. And even fewer shadows capture the ear’s concavities. Wonderful work!
4) A hallmark portrait drawing of a man wearing a hat by @yuliasybbotina
Throughout the portraiture work in her portfolio, @yuliasybbotina masterfully handles the drawing techniques discussed above. Any one of her portraits draws the eye of the beholder into the picture. Next, she leads the viewer’s gaze around the sitter’s facial features and countenance. Her emphasis on different visual elements in the portrait drawing has already mapped out the journey that we will take. The same is true for @yuliasybbotina’s self-portraits. Yet, given the extent of her work, I will dedicate a separate article to the drawings of her likeness.
A portrait drawing of a bearded man aux quatre crayons
From monochrome to polychrome drawings, the portraits of @yuliasybbotina uphold the same consistency in quality. Here, we see a portrait drawing of a bearded man wearing glasses and a hat. Four pencils in white, sanguine, sepia and black capture the subject’s likeness on a grey-toned paper. That is to say, a drawing aux quatre crayons, a French term meaning “with four pencils”. Find a definition of aux quatre crayons and the related concept aux trois crayons in my explanation titled, what is aux trois crayons drawing?
I treasure the directionality of the crosshatching covering the collar, the hat brim, and the hatband. And I enjoy meeting the portrayed man’s slightly irritated, moody and demanding gaze. But, what is most remarkable about this portrait drawing is something else.
Visual synthesis perceives the whole to avoid distraction by details.
Note how the man’s left sideburn, his ear and the hair at the back of his head get grouped. As a result, a homogenous shadow area extends from the back of the Zygomatic arch, across the Sphenoid bone, to the Temporal bone. Furthermore, the artist even omitted half of the left temple of the man’s spectacle frame to avoid disrupting the unity of that shaded shape. This portrait drawing is an example of visual synthesis, which we also encounter in the fine art of painting.
In simple words, different features on the side plane of the man’s head get combined to form a unit. Their overall gestalt gets conveyed like we would see it with squinted eyes. Consequently, there is a reduction of tonal values and a perception of the whole rather than the details. Hence, this visual simplification gives the impression that the ear is present but avoids distraction from the man’s facial expression. We find a similar synthesis in the treatment of his moustache and beard. Such visual synthesis is the hallmark of a great portraitist!
Discover more about the art of portrait drawing by @yuliasybbotina
I hope this article helped you appreciate the unusually beautiful portrait drawing by @yuliasybbotina. And if you wish to see more of her art, then make sure you visit @yuliasybbotina.
If you enjoyed this article, follow me on Instagram for more thoughts on drawing and painting. You can also find me on Twitter, YouTube and Rumble. Do you have feedback about this article? Then join the discussion and leave a comment below. I am excited to read your thoughts about this artist.
Finally, if you have a more general question about the fine art of drawing and painting, reach out to me. The best way to get in touch with me is by emailing me via my contact page.
