Kirill Alekseenko

Being stuck inside all day, I don't see much hope for doing many watercolours for a while.  And with me actually having a piece of work on a the moment, I won't have much time for any sort of artwork in the week.  On the other hand, weekends are looking a bit more empty now than I don't need to be driving my youngest to football training on Saturdays and matches on Sundays.

So I do have a bit of time to do some drawing at weekends.  I needed a theme, so I'm going for chess players.  In particular I'm going to have a go at drawing all eight players who were competing in the FIDE Candidates tournament that had to be paused earlier this week so that the French, American, Dutch and Chinese players could all get home before Russia went into full turtle mode.

First up is young Russian grandmaster Kirill Alekseenko.  I thought I’d start with one of the easier ones.  I knew from the start that the outline around his right forearm would be the best bit.  One big long sweep with the black marker at the end, without caring whether it exactly dilineated the border between flesh tones and background.  The flesh tones are good too.  And I think the way I've only put in the chess pieces quite sketchily works well.

So I'm quite pleased with this.  It's not going up for sale.  I want to have a go at all eight players first and see if I can come up with something that uses all eight portraits, even if it's only a case of framing them in something with eight apertures.