According to Francisco Pacheco, Velasquez, from a young age, painstakingly worked on the drawing. “He paid a little money to the village boy,” Pacheco recalled, “who willingly posed for him.” Velazquez could paint the head of this guy endlessly, like the heads of all the local residents, drawing with charcoal and white chalk on blue paper and always aspiring to to achieve a portrait resemblance. “
Unfortunately, the artist’s early drawings have not survived. And the later works of this genre that have reached us can be counted on the fingers. However, the latter is not due to annoying losses, but to the peculiarities of Velasquez’s artistic work. In adulthood, he preferred to paint pictures directly on canvas without making preliminary sketches and making the necessary corrections “along the way.”
As for the surviving drawings, they once again demonstrate the outstanding skill of the artist. Characteristically, they are made with black chalk by wide powerful strokes that vividly resemble the famous brush strokes of Velasquez. At the top is his hand-drawn portrait of Cardinal Borgia.
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