Same model, different medium

I wasn't entirely happy with yesterday's gesso portrait of Mary McLeod Bethune. Something about the three-quarter view—pointing the nose and mouth in the same direction as the rest of the face—eluded me. It was only by a small degree, but enough to be unsettling when looking for a likeness.

So today I decided I would follow the example of my friend Corinne and do the same portrait again, but this time using acrylic inks. I had initially planned to do my usual pen-and-ink drawing, but the subtleties of shading with purple, two shades of brown, and some indigo made me decide that it would be more fun to do a "purist" portrait. So I drew it lightly in pencil, and everything else was ink, except some final embellishment of her white hair and her pearls with Signo gel pen.

I still didn't capture her the way I wanted to; she looks too young without all the wrinkles and small details I could have instilled with my ink pen, and her face is a bit longer and narrower than it is in the reference photo, I think. I'm not disappointed in the portrait itself, but rather with being unable to convey the depth of age and experience I can see in her face.

(I also still can't get the directionality of her gaze to work, dammit!)

Perhaps I'll try it one more time, this one in ink, and see how it works out.

"Mary McLeod Bethune 2"—pencil, Daler Rowney inks, Signo white gel pen, on 140-lb. Fluid coldpress watercolor paper, approx. 9x12 inches.