Drawing a Portrait: Christopher Dollanganger

Figure Drawing is always an exiting pastime, here I will be attempting to do  a portrait of Christopher Dollanganger from Flowers in the Attic.


Christopher is the oldest sibling, and in the novel Chris is the one who has the strongest conexion with her mother: Corrine Foxworth. He is described in the book as someone with attractive features, and a boyish attitude. I tried to look for a face with this characteristics, and this is what I ended up sketching.

Christopher is also blond with cerulean blue eyes like Cathy, Cory and Carrie.  I tried to draw him when he was around sixteen, seventeen years old. This is the pencil I used,  charcoal B57-2b for the shading,

       

 I also used a conventional pencil to initially draw the face.  It took my quite some time, but it was very fun, If you are trying to learn to draw, or if you draw already, you’ll know that have your eraser in hand is very important, it helps to improve the quality of your drawing, I always make mistakes, and everyone who draws that I know also make mistakes, but erasing and trying again is always a good option.  Here I started drawing

Thinking about the character that you are drawing, helps you to focus more. Things that I consider about   Christopher  is that he is very authoritative sometimes to the point of being a little bit condescending to Cathy, I noticed.  so I think a face that shows a little bit of petulance may be also  appropriate for Chris, even though he is mainly described to be very optimitistic. But, I am not buying it, I think he knows how to hide his fellings very well.

So it seems that Chis hair is very curly to the point of being a mess, at some point in the novel, he gets a haircut by Cathy.  I wanted to put hints of blond hair and give the impression of coarse hair.

And I ended up  with this. Well I may not have done the best drawing, but  doing this portrait helped me to visualize and understand better the Chris that V.C Andrews created. I was left with the idea that he was most likely an Adonis, after reading all the references of beauty in the Dollanganger family and Cathy's descriptions of her brother. But most importantly is that he was very ambitious and his goal in life was to be a doctor.

Cathy and Christopher have many interests in common they both enjoy reading, and philosophysing. Christopher is specially good at painting using watercolors and is very studious and dedicated to learning more about medicine. He is psychologically a very healthy character, but the stress of living at Foxworth Hall took the best of him and eventually led him to abusive behavior towards his sister. Although the level of complexity of this relationship may not be suitable for everyone, one can infer that some of his behavior was the result of  the mind control  that was taking place at Foxworth Hall. The Gothic Horror commentator  Cosette Kies says that the intimacy between the siblings in the novel is not that of abuse but rather of forbidden lust. This subject may have Freudian undertones that deserve better exploration.