How does one go from drafting budgets to drawing stunningly detailed pencil portraits? It takes time.
Pencil portrait artist Patricia Greco didn’t doodle as a child. In her lifetime, she says her only artsy effort was knitting. “But, I think things bubble up after retirement. As women, we continue to evolve,” she added.
Pat’s first art lessons were in oil painting. However, after several classes, she found she was more strongly drawn to pencils. Her oils teacher was not thrilled, but all was not lost. “Thank Heavens the teacher didn’t give up on me,” Pat shared. “She gave me the eye.”
It wasn’t “giving her the eye” in the form you might receive from a disapproving parent or boss. Pat’s oil painting teacher gave her the gift of being able to see her creations with a new eye. She encouraged Pat to walk away and come back later to see her work in a different way. She suggested looking at the work in a mirror or upside down. “When you do that,” the teacher suggested, “you can more easily see where things work and where they are not quite right.”
“As I started drawing, I discovered I’m not a linear person.” She tells a story about attempt- ing a drawing of dancers near a Venetian tower. As instructed, she studied it from afar and a different perspective. “My tower looked more like the tower in Pisa than Venice! I had to admit that straight lines are not my strength.” She has “graduated” to faces.
In addition to seeing things with a new eye, Pat continues to take time to walk away. It fits her work style. Pat refers to herself as an “intermit- tent drawer.” She’ll work for 30 minutes and then walk away for a while, especially when working on something of her own design. When working on a commissioned piece, she’ll spend a little more time in any one work session.
Several years after the oil painting class, Pat took a drawing class at the Delaplaine Visual Arts Center. “I learned more about perspective and focal selection there,” she said. “While I would look at the whole room, other students were looking at and focusing on individual elements within the room.” She believes that new perspec- tive improved her work.
“When I’m drawing, I don’t start with the face. I work my way there. I need to feel the person before going to the face,” Pat says. While her por- trayal of both hands and eyes are amazing, the eyes in Pat’s portraits could tell stories on their own. No wonder she waits to get there.
Rather than in-person settings, Pat draws mostly from photographs. She adds or removes elements as necessary for her desired outcome. For her non-commissioned work, Pat takes inspi- ration from a variety of images.
Doing what we love and that which stirs our passion can absorb all our focus. To Pat, drawing is therapeutic. She shuts out all other things, no music, no TV, no radio. She works in a quiet Zen mood. Although she may concurrently read two to four books, she focuses and works on only one drawing at a time.
Focus is especially necessary when working with pencils. They can smudge. Sometimes that’s what you want, but not always. According to Pat, “what you use where” makes all the difference. Each pencil and implement has unique effects. Portrait pencil drawing is much more complex than anything we might have done with that familiar #2HB pencil in elementary school.
While graphite pencil, compressed charcoal and charcoal pencils are all forms of carbon, they are used for totally different artistic effects. Graphite is great for creating minute details. It’s made for small, quick sketches. However, graphite is difficult to use for cov- ering large spaces without creating a shine. Charcoal is better for the big-picture scenario and creating blacker or darker elements in a drawing. With the broad range of values and consistencies between the two, Pat is able to capture every possible shade of black, white or grey necessary for a project. She says she has “learned a ton of things about pencils.”
With her growing knowledge, Pat has cre- ated a wide range of portraits with wonderfully diverse shadings and details. After sharing a beautiful image she’d done of a Native American in full headdress, however, she professed that she was not going to draw feathers again. At least not for a long while.
If you’re not considering an imminent image with feathers, you may appreciate knowing that Pat prefers customers who approach her or those whom she encounters on her rare public sales events. She doesn’t have much interest in self-promotion or the “business” of art. More than other people’s admiration, Pat appreciates that others enjoy her work and that it evokes emotions and brings joy.
Pat has found joy living in Frederick. After working and living here in the past and then leaving, she returned to Frederick a couple years ago. She says she loves Frederick’s sense of community and camaraderie. She enjoys Frederick’s lifestyle.
Through volunteer activities in Baltimore, Pat still connects to her Italian heritage. In fact, that heritage is revealed in her popular drawings of women in Italian masks. Those images and others are on notecards she’s made to sell. They will be available at the Holiday Art and Craft Fair in Wormans Mill Village Center on Saturday, November 19, 2022, from 10:00-3:00. Prints of several of her other works are also available to anyone who is interested. GrecoArtStudio.com