Practicing Human Portraits…and the latest pet portraits
I’m not sure how I found the time because I’m usually so busy in the Fall, but I managed to try a few more people portraits. The first one I worked on was another Kaya picture, using a photograph taken by my daughter-in-law Joanna, as a model. It was strongly backlit but I just tried to draw what I saw. I decided to use pencil because I believed that I had more control using graphite, knowing I could use an eraser….
The final Kaya Portrait, in graphite
I was really pleased with the way this came out but….as I looked at it over time I decided that my next attempts would be stronger. By that I mean darker darks and lighter lights.
The next time I worked at portraiture however, I was just having fun. Simbi and I spent some time on vacation last Summer drawing faeries. I decided to try to draw Simbi as a Faerie. I used colored pencils and got this drawing done in just a couple of hours. Since I took this photograph of it I have added faerie wings.
The Simbi Faerie
I think this one looks more like my subject than anything else I have ever done. I emailed the photograph of the drawing to Simbi in London and I got this reply: OMG!! It looks just like me!! Since I did this one in color (something I had been afraid to try) and was relatively successful, I have been thinking that maybe I should just keep working where I am most comfortable – in pastels.
I know that I work better with deadlines so I offered to do a portrait for a friend who would then give it as a Christmas gift. This project ended up being two portraits – a mother/daughter composition. I worked on this picture for about two months, photographing it along the way. My friend sent back very helpful and detailed critiques and when I finished we both felt that I had captured both subjects.
Mother and Daughter
When I decided this one was done I brought it to a local printer who has an oversized scanner. Unfortunately the scanner bed was only 11×17 and this picture is wider than that. They made a decent scan, however, and we were able to give the original to the mother and the scan to the daughter.
I know that I said I was going to go back to the pastels, but for this one, with a deadline looming, I decided to stay with pencils. I did try, though, to be a lot stronger and more confident. I think, too, that the work I ‘ve been doing with people really affected my pet portraits. The next one I worked on was Buster – he will be in the next post – and I had a lot of trouble getting started. I had been working so hard at seeing the subtle light variations on the human faces that I was a little overwhelmed, looking at Buster. I was seeing too much!
September 29, 2010
Because I said I would post some of my more recent Pet Portraits and I see that I never did, here are the last three I did:
Buster, pastel
Mickey, pastel
Jasmine, pastel