Nigel Proud is a Yorkshire based self-taught portrait artist using graphite, charcoal, black/white pastel and pastel pencils to enable him to capture a range of emotions, posing questions about what the subject may be thinking.
His artwork evokes a strong emotion when someone receives it, memories come flooding back as it captures a special moment in time. He wants people to feel the passion in his portraits, creating a narrative about all their happy memories, capturing the unique individual characteristics of the subject. When he sees this, he has an amazing sense of fulfilment and achievement, having been entrusted with producing a lasting memory of a pet or loved one.
As a member of Huddersfield Art Society, he exhibited at the 2016 Annual Art Show and was awarded a certificate and prize for ‘Best Picture By A First-Time Exhibitor’ for a portrait of his father titled ‘Terence Edward Proud’, who sadly passed away in 2015. His father saw the painting and was extremely proud of it.
He organised a weekly Zoom Group during the 2020 Coronavirus Lockdown, setting challenges to help fellow artists from Shelley Art Group engage and stay motivated. Nigel greatly admires the work of the NHS in these exceptional times, producing eight portraits for the `Portraits for NHS Heroes initiative’. He has also produced a `Heroes of Shepley Collection’ – gifting seven free portraits to people who have kept his village going throughout the pandemic
Following a brush with cancer in his younger days, Nigel is a passionate supporter of `Project Youth Cancer’, donating some of the profit from his paintings to help raise funds for this extremely worthwhile cause (www.projectyouthcancer.org).
Nigel aspires to be an artist who passes on his experience to help others on their artistic journey. He encourages and thrives on feedback, knowing that he is always learning from life and other artists.
My Process
I start with the outline of the head including the hair – if you’re walking down the street, you recognise someone by the outline of their head, not their eye or nose. I’m looking to get this accurate using comparative measurement – height to width etc. Once I’ve got that in place, I put a mark for the hair line and chin and divide into three, which gives you the brow and bottom of the nose.
Next up is comparing the thirds in relation to the brow and nose measurement – if you get the length of the nose correct and use that as a guide to the other two thirds, that helps to get a good likeness, as a nose that is too long or short always stands out. I think that the nose measurement is really important as it’s generally the only thing not covered by hair, hat or beard.
Halfway from the bottom of the nose to the chin is where the bottom of the lower lip usually sits. The top of the top lip will be halfway between bottom of nose and bottom of lower lip. From the bottom of the lower lip to the brow is equal to the brow to top of the head.
That’s the height sorted, although it can be a bit out as we’re all different. The width of the face is very similar to that of the chin to the brow, the width of the head including ears being equal to the bottom of nose to top of the head.
The distance the pupils are apart is equal to chin to bottom of the nose, and the bottom of the eyes are approximately one third the distance down from the brow. The width of the nose is equal to chin to bottom of lower lip, the tear ducts line up with the edges of the nose, edges of the mouth line up with the pupils.
When drawing a portrait or anything for that matter, draw what you ‘actually’ see not what you ‘think’ it looks like.
Once I have the structure of the head with the features in place and I’m happy, I add the shadows under the brow, nose, top lip, bottom lip and chin.
Now for the shading – I use a 2H pencil to gently add the lightest tones, blending with a stump, soft brush, cotton bud or piece of tissue. When I need to go darker, I change to a softer pencil, blending as I go along. To create highlights I use a Mono 0.5mm eraser or a putty rubber.