Eyes Are More Than Just Windows to the Soul....

...they are also a pain in the BUTT! lol. So I spent the little bit of time I worked on art last night and tonight just trying to adjust the eyes on my cousin, Greg. His head is tilted, which causes his eyes to be at a diagonal slant, which is a bit tricky to get sometimes. This is where I'm at now...and I can see it still needs adjustment.

I still need to lower the eye on our right, just a bit more. The eye on our left also needs adjustment...I see I've got it too open. After adjusting the eyes, I'll move on to tweeking everything else. And now that I've got it up on the computer, I can see his face looks a bit fatter than it should be. I'll need to slim him down some too. (You can always see things on the computer monitor, that you don't notice when the drawing is right in front of you. It's a strange phenomenon. lol.)

When I took the workshop with Nicole Caulfield in February, she told us that she believes that if you can get the eyebrows right, then you will have the likeness down. I don't remember the exact story of why she believes this, but basically it was because when shown pictures of just the eyebrows of well known celebrities, you could tell who the celebrity was by just the eyebrows, but when shown a picture of the same celebrities without the eyebrows, you couldn't tell. I haven't tested that theory out to myself...it sounds almost unbelievable. But, if that theory holds true, then that could that be why this particular portrait is giving me problems. His eyebrows are covered by his hair. That also would mean that I'll have problems with the cousin in the middle...because you can't see her eyebrows, they're blonde! lol. Just a thought.

So this is where I'm at right now. I think this weekend I might take some time to work on another 5x7 portrait for my portfolio. Just to work on something different. I can usually finish one of those in 3 -4 hours, so if I can find that much time to sit down, I will.

After I finish this portrait of my cousins, the next thing on my plate will be a portrait of my friend Hope and her wife. I was supposed to have it done by their wedding, back in August....but I was not happy with it. So I will be starting over. And we'll compare the two at the end. Oh what fun!! lol.

WIP - almost done!

And we're moving along! I decided to go with blue for the cousins shirt that's on the left. It was black in the reference photo, but black would be too flat, so I decided to go with blue. That is just indigo blue and copenhagen blue...with a layer of orange under the indigo to make it darker. His eyes are bothering me. I think I need to lower the eye on our right...slightly. I'll take another look at it tomorrow...with fresh eyes myself. Maybe hold it up to a mirror.

I don't like how the sky is coming along...I think I need another value in there for more of a subtle gradation. But we're getting there.

WIP ...still going....

Just an update....not too much to say about it. You can see I blocked in their clothing...I made an adjustment to my oldest cousins's face on the right. Other than that, not too much to show. After I took the picture, I added stripes to his shirt, but after that it was too dark to take another picture, so you'll see that in the next update.

WIP continues.....

Their faces still need to be tweeked for likeness, but I was getting tired of working on that part, and felt like working on something else. So tonight, I worked on a layer of my oldest cousin's shirt.

My aunt does not have a preference for the background color. I think I will just do a sky blue background...maybe some clouds, I don't know. I'll see where the piece takes me in the next couple of days.

WIP - Three Subject Portrait Continued...

Please excuse the glare from my flash, it was starting to get dark when I finally stopped drawing today. Oh, and the picture is a bit distorted, because it was leaning on my easel when I snapped the picture.

I decided I would pretty much block them all in, and then I can go back in and do tweeking for likeness later. I'm also trying to decide what color I'd like to do in the background. Aunt Paula, if you want a specific color...let me know.

I'll be working on it some more tomorrow...I'll probably have the house to myself for a while since my fiance is planning on going into work. I'm the most productive when I have the house to myself, whether it's cleaning, yard work, drawing or whatever...I get more done when I'm by myself, than when he's home. lol.

WIP -Triple Subject Portrait of my Cousins

And now the fun begins!

This is the second attempt at this drawing. The first attempt was started before I began this blog, and it was done on a navy blue sheet of Fabriano Tiziano. I just didn't like the result I was getting, so I scrapped it. This paper is Uart 400 sanded pastel paper. I transferred my line drawing from the original drawing so that I wouldn't have to redraw the whole thing. But somewhere along the line, something got screwed up, because I can see that I need to move all of his facial features up a little bit. Shouldn't be too hard to do. I learned in the workshop with Nicole Caulfield, that even though I can't erase on the Uart, I can lift the color out with sticky tak. Yeah, the stuff you hang posters with! lol. So I'll lift off most of the color, and then whatever is left should be easy enough to cover with more color. I should have checked my line drawing before starting to add color. Oh well...you live you learn!

Oh, and please excuse the missing eyes. I was waiting on my Aunt to respond with his eye color. But now that I have to move all of his facial features, I'll wait until then to add in his eyes.

More to come soon :)

Portrait of my best friend

Over the course of the last 3 days or so, I worked on this portrait of my best friend, Jeanette. She didn't know...so when she sees it posted on Facebook and/or Myspace...I can't wait to see what she says. I'm trying to build up a bunch of these little 5x7 portraits for my portfolio...but I think she might want it, so I may have to give it to her. lol. I wonder if she'd accept a print...?

It probably took me a total of 3 or 4 hours to work on it total. I didn't sit down and bang it out in one shot like I did my self portrait. This one was done on the Uart 400...which is the same paper I used for the portrait of my uncle. I'm not sure yet which I prefer, the 400 grit or the 500 grit. I guess more experimenting is in the future. I ordered a big sheet of the 400 to work on the portrait of my cousins for my aunt in North Carolina. I will be starting that any day now. The paper just came in Friday, I cut it to the right size yesterday. I'll transfer my drawing to it tomorrow, and I'll do that one as a work in progress, like I did the squirrel. That one will take me some time, as it will be 16x20 with 3 subjects.

This picture of Jeanette was taken in July of 2008. She no longer has her hair dyed that color...but that was probably my favorite out of all of her "dye jobs". I chose this picture mostly because it was a good closeup, I just had to crop out the other person in the picture...and because I wanted to see how I would fare with makeup. I think I did a pretty good job. She was wearing sparkly blue eye shadow, and pinkish colored lip gloss. Her lips are very shiney in the picture. I think her eyeshadow is darker than I have it. But I kinda like it the way I have it. Now that I look at it, her eyebrow may need to be adjusted. I'll look at it again in a few days for a fresh view and then is there is something not quite right, it should jump out at me.

Next post should be the portrait of my cousins. :)

Portrait of my Fiance

Here is a portrait I have worked on for the past 2 nights. It's of my fiance, to match my Self Portrait in Sunglasses. The reference pictures were both taken on the same day when we were at the beach hanging out with his dad, who was down from Ohio at the time. This portrait will go in my 5x7 portfolio. It was done on Uart 500 with Prismacolor colored pencils.