This past January, during my Rome workshop, we visited the Museo Nazionale Romano a Palazzo Massimo, a little know Museum near the Termini train station, where incredible masterpieces of ancient art are exhibited, such as The Quirinale Boxer, one of the few bronzes that arrived to us intact from antiquity.

The work I am proposing you for this Open Drawing Session, is a marble portrait of the Roman Emperor Lucius Verus that, incidentally, looks a lot like a dear friend of mine.

The anonymous sculptor that portrayed him was able to record for us not just the sitter’s facial features, but also his expression, mood, personality.

I could not stop looking at this wonderful work, his pensive expression, his handsome features, the exquisite technique of the anonymous artist.

I want to invite you to join me to meet this visitor from the past and greet him by drawing his portrait using charcoal and chalk on toned paper.

This 2:30 hour session, will be particularly interesting to artists that want to practice drawing the features of the head and face, develop tonal rendering skills, practice working on toned paper and capture facial expressions.

Materials:

• Charcoal sticks in medium, soft and extra soft gradations. My favorite brand is Nitram, but you can use any charcoal brand you are used to. Do not use willow charcoal because it is too weak for our purposes.
• Compressed charcoal pencils in medium, soft and extra soft gradation, General’s is a very good and cheap brand.
• White chalk in pencils and-or sticks.
• Paper: Medium value, tan or gray toned paper such as Canson, Mi teintes, Fabriano, Hahnemuhle or Strathmore Charcoal toned.
• Kneaded eraser, pencil sharpener, sand paper.