Portrait of John McCormick
 

Pencil on board, 15" x 25".

My name is Armin Mersmann. Although I used to paint in oil quite a bit, my interest of late has been pencil drawings.

This is the third person in the series of five

Dear Armin:

Perhaps you might consider, as a New Year's resolution, to strive for more realism in your work.

Seriously, I thought you had posted the reference photo--but forgot to post the drawing. What an astonishing skill you have. Would you consider writing something of your technique? Do you paint like you draw?

Thanks Scott, no my paintings were not as tight nor did they have the depth. I still paint but not portraiture per se. I find the graphite work for me in portraiture because of the absence of color, which leaves some of the mystery. Thank you and Happy Holidays to you.

Armin

Armin,

Your work is really amazing. Please, if you could go into some discussion of your process. to me, there is nothing more incredible than a graphite portrait which breathes reality as your does. This man reaches out of the image and captures me with his intensity and gaze -- quite a gift you have!

Looking forward to seeing more of your work.

Pat

Also, very nice drawing. Considering the size, it looks like it might be a bit intimidating to look at.

Thank you Pat and Jeff, I appreciate the questions and comments very much.

The dark background is just graphite, I use a very small size pencil, .5 and .3 (softness B and 2B), to accomplish this. The small leads keep me from indenting the drawing board and leave no visible lines or the shine you get with larger wood incased pencils.

I draw in small circles over numerous hours; an average drawing of this type can take from 100 to 200 hours, much of it spent on the background.

An important part to this is spraying very lightly with mat fixative when it

Beautiful work, Armin. It is a style quite opposite of mine. I am far too A.D.S. to draw this way. I admire good realism. There is so much bad realism out there. This is a labor of love. I can tell.