Drawing Tutorial: How to Make a Portrait with Movement

Learn quick tips to create experimental, mixed-media portraits full of energy and color using ink, tea, water, and alcohol

Faces are filled with thousands of tiny details that make portraits particularly challenging for many artists. But—if you're open to experimentation, artistic portraiture can be a great opportunity to explore and unleash your creativity.

A believer that your process is just as important as the result, experimental artist Carne Griffiths (@carnegriff) plays with different mediums to create striking and dynamic portraits; he uses ink, alcohol, and tea bring life and movement to his work.

In this tutorial, Carne shows you how to look beyond the details and experiment with mixed media to create a dynamic and unique portrait. Watch the video below:

1. Sketch out your portrait (without getting bogged down in the details)

Carne begins the portrait by sketching his portrait using a photo as a reference. He sketches lightly with graphite and picks up on the areas of tone so he doesn't go into too much detail.

A tip from Carne is that if you hold your pencil further back, you can't concentrate so much on the details, and you're forced to create more energetic lines. He also moves around the image too so he doesn’t become too absorbed in one particular area.

2. Erase lines to create dynamic marks

An eraser is typically used to fix problems, but it can also be used to help shape and mold your portrait. Carne recommends using your eraser to create some white space on your page, making room for color later on, and stopping the image from becoming too “muddy”. The eraser can be used to create highlights in certain areas too.

Again, Carne is looking for movement in his piece so uses the eraser in short bursts around the whole portrait, rather than getting too focused on one particular area.

3. Add color to the page using a fountain pen

Carne uses sepia and turquoise inks, adding color in an intuitive way throughout the piece. He uses the fountain pens to create lines and structure to balance the piece which—when he adds liquid in a later stage—will create sweeping color in the right areas.

He lays heavy blue in the shadow areas, then uses sepia ink to create the mid-tones and red colors. He then goes over the blue areas with sepia so that they mix together later on to create a new color.

4. Experiment with liquids, starting with plain hot water

Carne uses water to create gestural marks and splatters, adding it to the inked shadow areas. He also blows on the work to create more movement in the piece. You can blot away any water if you’re not happy with the color resting in it.

5. Add further tone with tea

It’s time for tea! Carne loves using tea in his work as a base color to bring back flesh tones to the portrait. Depending on the tone you want to achieve, remember the color will get darker as the tea brews.

At this point, Carne lets his work dry to preserve the flow of ink before adding any more layers to it. Carne recommends sitting with your work while it dries so you can manipulate it if needed by either blotting away colors and patches you don’t like, or moving the board around to create streaks of color and pattern.

6. Add alcohol and ink

For the final step of his experimental portrait, Carne adds ink watered down with alcohol. He dips his fountain pen in the alcohol, then softens some of the lines on the face with this ink. You have the structure of the face already at this point, so you can have fun and add some abstract lines throughout the portrait.

Before adding the final touches, Carne sits back and looks at the portrait as a whole, noting lines of movement throughout the piece, as well as incidental lines that were created in the previous stage. He chooses to emphasize these further with his pen and ink.

Once Carne's happy with the portrait, he adds floral elements to the piece. He draws them quickly so they have a flow to them, but they feel graphic in their structure. He goes back to add detail after initially layering them on the page as a finishing touch.

If you enjoyed this tutorial, you can learn more about how to paint dynamic, mixed-media portraits in Carne's Domestika course, Experimental Portraiture with Ink, Tea and Alcohol.

Discover more portrait drawing tips

- Watch this drawing tutorial to make an easy chalk pastel portrait from scratch.

- Explore 10 realistic portrait drawing courses online, and learn how to create expressive portraits that capture your subject’s personality.