My Babygirl's Official Bridal Portrait

 16 x 20 oil on gessoboard

This was a challenge! Primarily because the reference material for the background and the one for the bride were two different lighting situations. AGH!!! You can read a little more and see the photos and 8x10 practice piece I did by clicking HERE. I posted that one back in April.

Here is the first step on the larger canvas:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4

Step 5 - Worked on her face. It is a portrait after all. 

Step 6 - I really had to start thinking about this mixed up lighting situation. 

The sun is behind her so she should really be in shadow.

Step 6 - Afraid I went too dark, I added a bit of a greenish blue tint to her dress.

Step 7 - Worked on background detail, and fought more with the color of her dress.

I also painted a very thin layer of very pale blue over the trees in the background, then, lifted it off a bit with a soft cloth. It gave the painting a bit more atmosphere and set the background further back.

At this point I even signed it and wondered if it was done. 

But no. I layered one more thin layer of the nearly white paint into the trees - 

pushing the background back just a teensy bit more.

I have shared 8 steps here but there were probably more like 16. Sometimes I would work just a little, get frustrated, and move to something else, and some days I dug in and got a lot done. 

I have to say I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Thanks for stopping by!

Loving the charcoal practice

Olive - 5 x 7 charcoal on gray paper

Below is the photo I took a few days ago, specifically for the purpose of practicing charcoal with a subject I love (my granddaughter).  I dropped it into Procreate and added the layer of red lines to help you see what I'm looking at when I draw.  For example, the corner of her eye lines up with the top of her ear. The corner of her mouth lines up with the bottom of her ear. I not only look for these lines but there are all kinds of shapes, both positive and negative which I'll talk about in another post.

I lightly sketched the image out on gray paper. Then dropped this one into Procreate as well and used the same red lines. I was only off by a little, (circled in blue) I had placed the eye and the eyebrow a bit too high.

For the initial sketch I used vine charcoal. I wouldn't recommend it for a finished drawing as it's too easy to simply wipe off with your finger. You barely need an eraser. But, for an under-drawing it's perfect. That's a small piece of vine charcoal in the photo and also the white charcoal pencil that I began using. 

I love adding the light and prefer to work back and forth between the white charcoal and regular charcoal pencils as I go along. I put it back into Procreate and it passed the red line test.

Another step

Another step

And lastly you have the image at the top of the page. The finishing touch was punching up the highlighted hair on top. I used my tiny mechanical eraser and a bit of the white charcoal pencil.

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Olive - Colored Pencil Portrait

"Olive" colored pencil on toned paper

Some of the steps:

Steps one and two were on the same day.

I was excited after one session so I came back to it a couple hours later.

This was the second day. Same thing - 

I was excited so I went ahead and did the finishing touches (top image).

 Tip:

I drew the image freehand. When it looked like this, I dropped it into Procreate in a layer over the top of the photo. Then, I reduced the opacity until I could see both images at once. I was able to see where I had gotten it wrong. The one you see above is actually after I corrected it. I had drawn the eye on the right side way too low. There were also little adjustments here and there, but I was pretty happy with myself for getting so close. As it's colored pencil, if I get something wrong from the beginning, there's not much I can do about it later. 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Rainy Day

5"x 7" watercolor on aquaboard

This year I want to practice watercolor. I've done several in the past but have certainly never mastered it.

The look of watercolor as it flows over the paper and does its own thing, all the effects that can be achieved, the energy of it. Yeah. I want to do that!

I've never quite gotten there, but that's what practice is about. One thing that is so so important is the surface you're working on. To do watercolors, surface is everything. This little painting is on aquaboard and it certainly has its benefits. It is very forgiving. The paint will lift off the surface (for the most part) with a wet brush. You can even scratch at it with an exacto knife. That's great. But what I wasn't able to achieve is that beautiful watercolor flow. Of course that could be me and my own inexperience. But I'll try the next watercolor on a different paper. 

Here are my steps:

With this bottom one, I realized I didn't like the eyes. That one on the left is just a bit too far away and higher that the other one. What now? Again, the aquaboard is forgiving, so I did manage to fix it a bit.

the final (at the top of page) is not perfect, but I was content with it.

This one below, I did several months ago in a watercolor sketchbook. The portrait itself isn't great, and his hand is unnaturally huge, but see how the paint does its thing, especially down in his sweatshirt? I like that. That's what I'm trying to do, that I couldn't seem to do on the aquaboard.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Olive - Grid Drawing

My granddaughter "Olive" 8 1/2 x 11 graphite

 

This one is in my handmade sketchbook - the kind where you can't really tear out pages.

I did a grid drawing, both to make it easier on myself, and to share a little about the grid drawing process.

I printed off a copy of the photo at the same size as my paper. The grid I drew in white gel pen on the photocopy is the same size as the one I drew (very lightly in graphite) on my sketchbook page. Then it's a matter of copying what you see inside each individual square. 

Here's the beginning. I erase the grid as I go. Remember to draw the grid as lightly as possible to make this step easy on yourself.

I am the most comfortable with my simple mechanical pencil which is a medium graphite, halfway between the soft, very dark graphite (like 6B or 8B) and the hard graphite which doesn't make marks beyond a soft gray color (like 6H). I do, however, switch back and forth between harder and softer graphite pencils as needed. You can see at the top of the photo. 

Notice that my drawing hand is resting on a piece of scrap paper. This prevents my hand from picking up graphite and smearing it around, making a mess on my hand and the paper. It also keeps any of the oils from my skin off the paper.

You also see a couple types of erasers, including the very important kneadable eraser just at the top of the photo, and a brush to wipe the surface after erasing (again keeping my hands off the paper as much as possible).

Lastly, the blending stomps! I don't know what I would do without them for those soft gradations. They hold a lot of graphite from blending the darker areas, and then become a drawing instrument themselves.

Information on blending stomps, erasers, and varying degrees of graphite hardness can be picked up in nearly any beginner's drawing book. I just wanted to share my workspace with you.

A closer look

These next two photos are simply progression shots that I take at the end of a setting. I usually work about an hour at a time. This isn't a commission so I go at a leisurely pace for the joy of it.

One more supply to mention - black colored pencil!

A book passed through my hands recently, and I learned that you can get the really dark blacks that make a drawing pop by switching to black colored pencil for the heavy shadowed areas and places like the eyes. It goes smoothly over the graphite. I use Prismacolor colored pencils.

You can also see that rich black in her hair at the top of the page.

Thanks for stopping by!

Water Park

 "Water Park" 8 1/2 x 11" graphite and bleach (with a little bit of colored pencil) on gray paper, 

with a black and white filter.

Below is the original. The bleach turned the gray paper yellow. I just went with it. What do you do?

I knew I could just pull up a black and white version. But, how cool is bleach?! I dipped a small paint brush in bleach and ran it down a ruler for the streams of water, then grabbed an old toothbrush, took the drawing to the bathtub, and started flicking bleach all over it. After it dried I added some more graphite and a bit of colored pencil. 

Before the bleach:

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Tilly - Child Portrait in Oils

Here is Tilly! One of my beautiful grandchildren. I took the photo last April when we visited my son and his family in Tennessee. He's quite the model and had no problem striking the poses. I had a lot of shots to choose from. Haha!

Here's the first progress photo I took. This is acrylic.

Here I started with the oil paints. I was saving his face to the end. This is only a 16 x 20 so his face was going to very small to work on, and I was going to need a lot of patience!

More oil paint application, and trying to get the colors right.

Starting to tackle the face.

Getting the proportions right. At this point I'm nearly done. 

I just had details to work out (for example, finish his hand holding the bar).

As always, thank you so much for stopping by!

And Then Like Magic, 2024 Appeared

I managed to get another calendar done this year, and this is my grandson, Tux- Mr. January.

I dropped the oil portrait I had done of him this summer into Procreate and, ABRACADABRA, here he is.

I had one heck of a 2023! So many big events, blessings, and wonderful moments. I have a feeling that 2024 is going to be another huge year. 

I wish you all health and happiness in the year ahead.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tux

This is my grandson Tux. What a kid! I had the pleasure of spending a whole week with him recently when he flew home with his mom. He is four years old and can name dinosaurs and reptiles with an accuracy I would have to study up on for weeks, possibly months. Yeah. Probably months. I know easy ones like T-Rex and rattlesnakes, but this kid was schooling me on saw-scaled vipers and titanaboas.

Titanaboa - an extinct (thank goodness) constrictor. 

I pulled this image from simple google search to share, because I thought you might like to add the knowledge to your brain bank in case you run into Tux somewhere. This is his favorite snake.

I was reading to him a page from a reptile book about Gila Monsters, incorrectly pronouncing it with a hard "G" sound. He politely corrected me, and I now know that it is pronounced Hee-la monster.

Speaking of being polite, he came downstairs one morning and said "Good morning, Grandma. How did you sleep?" Four years old! But . . . he is a boy. He was also found here with his cousin Tilly:

And he wasn't very polite about having to bathe. Haha!

I think this is the only photo I have of the three boys together, 

mostly because the little one on the right (Novan) never sits still.

The image at the top of the page is done in oils. While his mom was here visiting, I couldn't NOT show her and give it to her in person. It is an image that will go in the family calendar. The one in the calendar won't look exactly the same, so it will still be somewhat of a surprise. I dropped it into Procreate and did magical things with it that I'll share here in January.

The process:

I didn't even draw this one out. I just started painting (on gessoboard).

 I have to say, I was getting very excited about the way it was turning out at this point.

Putting in a background, after the image is painted seems backward. I don't recommend it. Like I said, I just jumped in and started painting, from a photo his mom Ashley had sent. As I tried to figure out what I was doing back there, I had to keep touching up the edges of his image. Just backward. 

But until his image was done, I didn't know what background I wanted so . . . ? hmmmm.

I tried a couple ideas. The one I ended up with at the top of the page, made him look,

in my humble opinion, the most animated and three-dimensional. 

Plus, I was tired of touching up edges!

I have to say, I get a lot of amazing photos from his mom and he is such a character that I could most likely make a career of creating images of him. Just look at this guy! Haha!

Love you so much Tux!