Pencil portrait: finished!

Today I decided that one way or another, I was going to get this portrait finished. Now I can relax tonight.

Working on a challenge

One of the most important things for a portrait artist is a good reference photo if she is an artist who works from photos. I prefer to take these myself, but sometimes this isn't possible. This was true in my most recent portrait.

After looking through the available images, which were few thanks to Hurricane Katrina, we settled on this one as having the best facial expression and having the most visual information. I scanned it into my computer and went to work with photoshop, lightening it to try and bring up more detail. With the face, I was fairly successful. With the tree bark, not so much.

Sometimes I don't put any background in at all, but I didn't feel that was a good choice for this image since she was leaning back against the tree. my solution was to go into my back yard and photograph one of my own trees with similar bark so I could get an idea of what the tree would look like if the photo was more detailed.

I placed it roughly with Photoshop. It didn't have to be seamless since it was only for visual reference. I could do all of my other work from the first photo. Tree bark, I discovered, takes a long time to draw, but I was happy with the finished product.

Drawing progression

Made a good beginning during Christmas.

It still needs quite a bit of deepening of darks, but it's coming along.

Author Laura Hillenbrand to the rescue!

Thanks to the book club, of which I am a sporadic member, I've had opportunity to work lately accompanied by the fantastic writing of Laura Hillenbrand, author of Unbroken. Her book tells an amazing true World War II survival story that you won't find (unfortunately) in any of today's history books. Definitely a must-read.

The happy upshot is that while listening to Ms. Hillenbrand's book, I've been able to finish two portraits and start another. Although the first two are top secret, I can share some of my progress on the third, which shows a big brother tenderly cuddling his new little brother, recently arrived.

A weekend's work

On Saturday I made a commitment to put in some solid work time with art. Not easy although I was up by 6 A.M. By 9:30 I had done lots of work, but no art work. Finally got going, though, and I was happy with the result.

Final work

And it's done. I'm looking through photos to choose my next image while I work on a painting which was won at a black tie auction for the Valeo Academy.

Progression

Sometimes it's fun to see the progression of a picture as it's being drawn. Here's my latest project. I find that the more of these pencil portraits that I do, the longer each one takes. As soon as it's completely finished, I'm going to switch back to 8 x 10 and do a painting before moving on with more pencil work.

If you could see the look on your face

What's the joke?

I love to draw people. I don't know why. In college it was a way to pick up a little extra cash by drawing portraits of girlfriends for guys. There was still a big learning curve there, and I wince at the thought of some of those efforts, but it was good practice. The only bad thing was that I had to use whatever picture might be on hand for a portrait. The poses were generally stilted and traditional. You know the kind: a smile directly for the camera.

Now that the mechanics of drawing comes more easily, I've discovered that much of the success of a portrait is due to the picture chosen for the project. I try to avoid traditional poses at all costs. I want something different: a moment caught rather than a pose. The best photos are like this, too. It takes time to catch a picture like that to work from, but it's always worth it. I ask myself, "Would Norman Rockwell want to paint this? Does it make me smile?" If the answer to these questions is yes, then I'm certain that I'll enjoy drawing the picture.

With that in mind, I hope you enjoy my latest portrait created from a moment caught.

Do you like to draw? What subjects do you enjoy the most? Are there images you'd like to draw but are afraid to try?

Recent drawing

My very cute nephew.

And the drawing in progress of my very cute nephew.
His expression reminds me of a mischievousness embodied.