In Living Color 54 - Dr Holoway

Last year was a trying time for me when I went to my doctor and he informed me I had need for a surgery I would never have expected.  Arrangements were made for me to meet with another doctor who would perform the surgery and a date set up.  After completing the operation and all but the last visit required behind me my loving husband and I thought it would be nice to give the surgery doctor a thank you gift for a job well done.  Being an artist it felt fitting to do some kind of art work for him and since I had recently painted my self portrait one of those rare ah-haa moments came.  Now how to get a photo of him that I could work from.  Easy, just google his name and low and behold the perfect image appeared.  I have to admit he was rather surprised!

Dr. Holoway
Acrylic
8" X 10"

In Living Color 53 - Self Portrait

I like working on more than one painting at a time rather than one from start to finish.  I find that as I work on a painting I will run into an area that I'm not sure how I want to paint it or just get frustrated and need to put it aside for a period of time.  If I reach this state on each of the paintings I am currently working on, and I have, I will try to throw a small project in to distract me.  This painting is one of those projects.  After seeing the paintings of Andy Warhol I thought it would be fun to do a self portrait in that style.  Taking a picture I had  I ran it through PhotoShop effects and got a two-tone picture I could use as a cartoon.  Then using acrylics and a canvas I made this painting.

Self Portrait
Acrylics
8" X 10"

In Living Color 52 - Pastor Larry

Out of all the paintings I have done so far I think this is the one I spent the most time on deciding whether I wanted to paint it or not.  One of the ladies in the art group I meet with each week decided it would be fun if each of us painted the same photo using our own style and medium.  Now usually I am up to trying something new but this photo was a portrait of our Pastor and we were going to present them to him as a Christmas gift.  No pressure there!  Well four of the ladies got started and had worked on them for a few weeks while I was still deciding what I wanted to do.  At last I decided why not give it a try, if I didn't like the finished painting I just would not present it.

Here is the photo that we started with.

Pastor Larry

Of the four that had begun Margaret decided to do a graphite drawing, Marge was working in acrylics after the Brito style, Bonnie was also using acrylics in what I dubbed as 'dabbelism' and Trish was doing acrylics in two-tone.  Everyone was working on a 8" X 10" canvas which also gave me reason for pause since I hadn't done much with acrylics on canvas and didn't want to begin with a portrait. But it was fun watching each week to see what was produced by each lady.

Below is a recent picture of the group of ladies I meet with.  Since this painting was done we have added a couple and lost one to other commitments. 
Top row left to right:  Janet, Bonnie, Billie, Marge and Paulette
Bottom row left to right:  Angie and Margaret















Once I completed the cartoon I decided I had to do watercolor on watercolor paper and would then mount it to a canvas so that all the paintings would be unison. 

I started with the shirt even though it is wise to leave blacks until the end of the painting so you don't accidentally cause it to bleed into the lighter colors if you drip water by accident.  I then moved to the first layers of skin tone and with just this much done I was really nervous about the end result.

 

Knowing that I needed to eventually paint Pastors eyes and didn't want to practice on the original painting I did a small sample and then made notations as to what changes I would make on the painting itself.  Using this sample I was able to lay it on top of the original to see how it would come together....well sort of.

 

With that little exercise done I went for the real thing and got brave enough to work on the mouth as well.

 

It was now time to work on refining the details and adding more layers of paint to even out the skin tone.  Keep in mind as you view the photos that each one is taken at a different point in time under different lighting conditions so they won't be consistent as far as color goes.  With this sitting I worked on adding the brows, refining the eyes and ears and unfortunately adding some wrinkles, or should I call them life lines, along with completing the overall color of the skin.

 

 I now felt I was finished with his face and decided not to try to improve anything since I have found that when I do I end up with mud from overworking the colors.  From here I had two areas to complete and since I was dreading the thought of how to paint the various layers of the hair I went for the background.  Actually I really didn't know how I wanted to do the background either so I played around on another sheet of WC paper until I came up with a simple but colorful example.  For this effect I painted wet on wet blending various colors as I moved around the paper.  As I completed each section in the movement I added a sprinkling of salt to give it one more dimensional effect.

 

Okay, now I don't have a choice, I need to paint the hair.  So again back to the practice sheet to try various colors and methods.  I came up with my best efforts and started with the lighter colors and continued layering until I was done.  This photo will give you an example of what the Pastor might look like when he reaches his fill of wisdom many years down the road.

 

Pastor Larry Linkous

Watercolor

8" X 10"











In Living Color 29 - Portrait Practice

Still having a desire to do a portrait I decided to try one, of a picture in a book, for a little practice before trying my granddaughter Grace.  I had fun painting it and it certainly looks like a person but I need to work on refining the process.

Portrait Practice - Watercolor

 

After the above practice I found a picture of Grace that Gary had taken that I liked and gave it a try.  I am not at all satisfied with the outcome of either painting but at least I tried and I will try again in the future.

 

Grace - Cartoon

 

Grace - Watercolor

 

I am so amazed at how much layering and detail a portrait requires and I find that choosing a photo with the correct lighting would be a plus in defining the facial features. 

Just Black & White 14 - John & Wendy

Today, unfortunately, I will be adding another unfinished work for your viewing.  Prior to starting with watercolors, while I was still working with graphite drawings, I decided to start what I had planned on being a series of portrait drawings.  This series was the engagement pictures of the three oldest children.  I started with John and Wendy since John was the first son although they were actually the last to get married.  Here is their engagement picture that I worked from.


John & Wendy - Engagement Photo

First I needed to start making the cartoon that I would work from.  I used the grid system for this and drew each detail square by square.  For this process see June entry Just Black & White 11 .

Once the cartoon was finished I transferred it to the drawing paper.  I used Arches hot press watercolor paper because it has a very smooth surface to work on with a more professional finished look.  Here is the cartoon.

John & Wendy - Cartoon

I spent many months on the portion I completed with the most time being spent on getting Johns hair just right.  I should have waited until he had a buzz it would have been easier.  Anyway I did complete the most important and difficult areas and the rest of it should be a piece of cake in comparison.  I'm not sure at what point I will get back to it since I am finally feeling like I'm making good progress with watercolor and don't want to interrupt that process.  I do plan on completing it and also plan on doing the other two children as well.  I just hope I live so long.  Here is my unfinished drawing.

John & Wendy - Unfinished Drawing

I believe it was from this drawing that I received the comment from Louise that I was a photo realist.  I guess I'm inclined to agree.

Just Black & White 13 - Betty

It’s time to meet Betty.  Betty was my neighbor and became a good friend.  We first met when I was cleaning out the rain gutters at the condo we were living in while our home was being built.  She saw me and jokingly asked if I would do hers as well and was a bit surprised when I picked up the ladder and walked over to her yard.  From that day forward we became very good friends.  Betty was in her eighties and had a unique personality.  She was not afraid to speak her mind and most times you had to take her with a grain of salt.  I learned a lot from Betty during the time we spent together since she was very well read and enjoyed the cultural events that both Gary and I love.  This picture is one I took at her eighty-seventh birthday party and knew I had to put my pencils to it.

Betty Montrose

Betty was a very independent lady living on her own, driving her car, playing pinochle with a group of ladies weekly and doing all she could to keep active.  Unfortunately time caught up with her and her health started going down hill.  I was blessed to be there to help when she needed to go to the doctors office and hospital visits.  This picture is the black and white I worked from in my drawing.

Betty in Black & White

Betty’s family didn’t live here in Florida and she finally had to be moved to Minnesota to reside in an assisted living facility close to where her son lived.  We continued to keep in touch but Betty finally passed on to a better life.  I miss her still and want to dedicate this drawing to a very special lady.

My Friend Betty

Just Black & White 11 - Value Chart

Before I could do a real portrait of real people Louise had a few more areas of instruction to cover.  The first was getting to know your pencils and using them correctly.  I started the class with ten graphite pencils and eventually added to that for a total of sixteen, ranging from 8B (soft) to 8H (hard) with B, HB, & F in between.  To become familiar with each pencil we made a value chart.  We started by filling in a small area of about ½ inch by 1½ inches by running a specific pencil back and forth making lines very close together.  Using the same pencil we then repeated this procedure on the same set of lines twice, moving down one third of the space each time.  Each third of the finished area would then have a different shade showing us how layering our work would change the value. 


Value Chart

Next we learned how to make a cartoon (line drawing) of the picture or person we wanted to draw.  For my first picture I chose a photo that I took of my husband Gary holding our granddaughter Grace.  She was only a few months old at the time and I was very fortunate to click the shutter at just the right moment and capture a priceless expression on their faces.

Gary & Grace

Since an enlargement would be necessary we were taught the grid method of doing this. Step one was to print a copy of the picture and place a small (1/4 inch) clear plastic grid over it. 

Small Grid on Picture

We would then place a piece of tracing paper over another larger (1/2 to 1 inch) grid that would give us the finished dimension or size desired.  Then working square by square draw the small picture onto the larger sized tracing paper using the line drawing method.

Grid Enlargement

Once this is done you have a cartoon which you then transfer over to your drawing paper.  One method is placing your cartoon over a piece of graphite paper which then is placed over your drawing paper and trace the cartoon lightly to leave an outline of your picture on the drawing paper.  The method Louise taught us was to flip the cartoon over and use a 2b (very soft) pencil to redraw your cartoon on the back of the sheet.  Before doing this we would sign and date the correct side for future reference.  When this step was finished you would place the cartoon directly on the drawing paper and trace the cartoon lightly to leave a graphite imprint that you would work from.  After all this was complete you could start your drawing.

Completed Cartoon

Here is my finished drawing using all of the procedures above.

Just Black & White 10 - Misc 5

With many of the basics behind us Louise went on to teach us how to do portraits.  As you have seen in prior posts I had already dabbled in portraits but now would get instruction from someone who really knew what she was talking about.  The first thing we learned was facial proportions, click here.  I was amazed since I didn't realize there was so much preciseness to it.  Here are the notes and drawings from that class.


Head Porportions - view 1

Head Porportions - view 2

Much to our surprise the first portrait she had us do was a self portrait.  The trick here was we had to do it from memory and we could not use a mirror.  It was interesting to see the results of each student and how we viewed ourselves.  Also the drawing was not very detailed, more like the line drawings we learned in the beginning.

Self Portrait from Memory

I went on that week and completed two additional drawings both from the Lee Ames book.  The first one was done correct except for the forehead which was slanted to the back more severe than the original but, I decided to leave it that way as a reminder to get my proportions correct in the future.

DWLA

DWLA

Just Black & White 7 - Misc 4

Since I'd done a little exploring on my own before I started classes with Louise I was surprised to find she taught the R-mode, L-mode method.  Much of her teaching comes from the book Drawing on the Right Side Of The Brain by Betty Edwards.   For more information on this subject click here.  Somehow it felt like I was starting all over again and in essence I was.  Louise started us out by doing an upside down drawing using a handout she gave all the students to follow.  It was very interesting to see each students interpretation and finished drawing.  Here is the handout we used and my drawing which was done upside down but you will view right side up.


Handout

My Drawing

Next she had us make a line drawing of our hand. 


My Hand

Then to our surprise she had each of us draw another student as they were drawing someone else.  That was an interesting exercise since we were all moving models.  I chose Del a sweet lady that I’m still good friends with. 


Del

All in all the first day was fun and I met a lot of wonderful people that are still part of my life in one way or another.

Just Black & White 6 - Misc 3

Things are about to change in my drawing career and I want to share the last of my drawings before that change takes place.  I was still working out of library books and a new book, Drawing With Lee Ames, that my husband Gary gave me for a special occasion.  Gary has always been so supportive of everything I do and encourages me whenever I'm down and feeling like I'm not doing well.  How blessed am I to have him.  Again I have the initials of the book I drew from listed above each drawing.  


In the hand drawing it was my first time using the crosshatching method.  Crosshatching is a technique for rendering shading in which one set of lines crosses over (overlaps) another set.


Hand - DFD

Curly Q's - DFD

 The egg was another challenge in trying and create the look of a round object.


Egg - DFD

Seagulls - DWLA

The drawings of the little girl were both done from the Lee Ames book using a different method for each.  One was drawn using a step by step method outlined in the book and the other was drawn from observing the finished drawing in the book.  I am not certain which is which but believe the first is the step by step method.

Girl 1 - DWLA

Girl 2 - DWLA

Another area I wanted to improve was the drawing of eyes so here are a few of my attempts in doing that.

Eyes

Just Black & White 5 - Misc 2

As I was going through the book Drawing From the Artist Within I came across an interesting exercise in using the right side of the brain.  Apparently our concept of drawing is changed depending on which side you use, R-mode or  L-mode.  In this exercise it was  just a matter of doing your drawing upside down.  In other words I placed the picture I was going to draw in front of me upside down and drew it as I saw it.  By doing this it confuses your normal way of seeing things and causes you to draw by the shapes you see, both negative and positive, rather than drawing the object itself.  The two pictures below are very simple line drawings consisting of many of the defined shapes I referred to. You will notice my signature was signed at the bottom of the drawing which would normally be the top.  By doing this you automatically know it was done as an upside down drawing.  I had a chance to use this method many times as I continued drawing and will share more on this subject another time.


DFAW

DFAW

I wanted to venture out and try a few subjects of my own so following are a few of my attempts at doing this.

My Feet

My Hand

Girl

Just Black & White 4 - Gary

I was doing portraits so I decided to try one of my husband Gary.  I found a picture that had been taken a few years earlier at the twenty-five year anniversary celebration of the company I worked with.  Since I had worked for this company prior to the time they bought out the previous owner I was invited. It was a dress up affair and Gary was decked out from head to toe.  I must admit that he looks a bit stiff and he is much more hand-some than the drawing indicates but it was a new challenge and a fun project.


Gary

 The next step was a self-portrait which was very interesting.  I sat on the counter top in our bathroom and placed myself directly in front of the mirror.  With pad and pencil in hand I began.  It wasn't until later that I was told that most self-portraits done in this manner will have a very serious expression to them as you will see.  Reason being is that when you look at yourself in the mirror it is with a serious eye as you try to see all the detail you are about to draw.  Therefore drawing from a photo might get you better results.

Self portrait

The following drawings are a few more that I drew using the library books mentioned previously with the exception of the one titled My Imagination which was just as it is titled.  Also the second and third drawing were done using charcoal.

DM&T

DM&T

DM&T

My Imagination

DFAW