One of the main themes of yesterday's #sotherbyssundaysketch was portraits of famous people in the past so I shared two posts on my Instagram showing my portrait of the philosopher I research, Lady Mary Shepherd which I drew in 2018.
First post:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CMsIULOAs2b/?igshid=jkyilp7u9ngn
Second post:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CMsIo6BAgra/?igshid=itsh5z9y27kd
The first post I shared shows the entire page in my 3D art sketchbook e.g. sketches, prep work, research and ideas for pottery, clay modelling, statues etc. Seeing the whole page gives the context around this first sketch and reveals some of my preparation process, especially how I tested different materials and colours before selecting a few that suit the look of a bronze coloured statue. Hence I chose a metallic pencil rather than a flesh coloured one. Out of those experimental marks I ticked, I started with the metallic bronze-like coloured pencil because this was only a first sketch, drawn in one go as an initial study for the statue for Shepherd.
Nevertheless, my sketch also doubles up as an historical-style portrait sketch of Shepherd. For this, I was inspired by Cassandra Austen's 1810 drawing of her sister, Jane, which you can see below:
The hue of the metallic pencil I used has a similar look to the brownish, 18th/19th century sketches so I thought it was in keeping with Shepherd's era (1777-1847). By basing my sketching style somewhat on Cassandra Austen's depiction of her sister, I attempted to create an intimate, sisterly portrait of Shepherd, rather than a formal, distant depiction of her.
For this first sketch, I looked at a painting of Mary Shepherd (then Primrose, her family name) as a 10 year old child with her family. It's a small depiction of her in a pastoral setting, in which we only see her profile. See below for that painting by Alexander Nasmyth (1788), Mary is standing second from the right.
We don't have one of her as an adult, so I've taken this child portrait and projected her into young adulthood when she writes her treatises, which she later publishes. I tried to imagine how she might appear if her child portrait were put through some computer software which would adapt her face into adulthood and drew what I pictured in my head. I wanted to be as realistic as possible because it is a pencil study for my proposed representational, life-like bronze statue of her. So my artistic process reflects that my design proposal is not imposing some abstract, non-representational, symbolic, going off on my own artistic tangent type of design. Instead, I am creating an historically accurate design as far as possible ie I keep her within her era, and further sketches for the design proposal will develop this, down to the fashion style of her clothes.
Why was I drawing a statue design proposal sketch of Shepherd? Because I had started a petition calling for a statue of Shepherd after having been inspired by attending the unveiling of the Fawcett statue in London. Once I'd created the petition, I realised it would be helpful to include a photo on my petition site to make her more real to people who had never heard of her. I also wanted to concretely show what I have in mind and that it would be a representational-style statue, especially since there are no paintings or drawings available of her as an adult. I decided I needed to do further historical research into the fashion of her era, especially during her earlier adulthood. So I began with a simple portrait focusing on her face, rather than depicting the full length of the statue from head to toe. This also gave me time to experiment with various gestures, expressions, poses and whether she would be sitting or standing.
I was going to go on to do other sketches the same day but my mother loved this one because she felt it had character and expressed her personality as she comes through in her writings. So I uploaded it to my petition site. This is the one and only sketch of Shepherd I have done to date. I tried to portray her facial expression as I see her sitting at her desk, thinking critically/philosophizing while disagreeing with most philosophers of her era and more, with a - no Hume, you are totally wrong about that! - look on her face! 😏
See the link below for the on-going petition I started in 2018. My petition here is the first petition created to call for a statue of Mary Shepherd, to be put alongside the existing statues of other Scottish philosophers in Scotland (all men) e.g. Hume, Adam Smith:
I also created and registered the hashtag below for my campaign for a statue of Shepherd:
#StatueForMaryShepherd
Here's a link to my post on my statue proposal:
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