"Tessa"

I've been wanting to try pastel mixed with charcoal and I recently got my chance with my niece Tessa's graduation picture. I know the hair was overworked with the pastel as I continue to struggle with drawing hair in either medium. It was another learning experience. The reference photo is quite gorgeous and I'm afraid I didn't do her justice. Next time I will try to do a better job on the eyes. I originally wanted to include them the pastel part but felt I had so overworked them in the graphite stage that it just wouldn't be worth the risk. Anyhow, maybe next time.

Festival Hats

Here are my daughter, Anthea and her mother sporting the Italian flag colors with hats at our Italian Festival. I'm continuing to work with getting the values right and not concentrating so much on getting a resemblance. I'm finding that the resemblance comes if I stay true to the values and composition. Anthea asked me to do the portraits in graphite and only the hats in colors. I found that I spent almost as much time with the colored pencils as I did the portraits.
Anyway, it was great fun.

Mary at a Wedding

Here's another attempt at my wife, Mary's portrait. The model was a photo of her taken on ther veranda at a lovely country club near Parkersburg, WV. I again tried to concentrate on the values and wound up having to work on gettting the colors right as well. Of course I continue to work at getting the resemblence and thought this was a better attempt then the one about a year ago. She seemed more pleased with this one than the one previous although she has little to say about it. I continue to work on the values with the acryllics and hopefully things will come together soon. I really want to try a landscape and my daughter, Anthea wants me to also but I find it so hard to pull myself away from the portraits. I don't know why. Oh well. Here's my work for August.

ACEY In Hat

Here is an acrylic portrait of my daughter Anthea. I used a photo taken last fall on out back deck as the model. I am learning to keep values and light consistent and this study provided a learning experience for me to do so.

Boiling Peppers

Here's a rendition using the medium of colored pencils of my wife Mary doing what she loves to do; cooking peppers. I reallly worked at trying to create realistic smoke. I need more work at doing this with the colored pencils as the blending is quite tricky.

Flower-girl's Kiss

Here's another value study of my two nices on my niece, Jen's wedding day. Again, I just consentrated on trying the keep the values in sinc. The hair turned into a rather difficulty and I often found myself overworking. Overall I thought it turned out better than I had thought although in some ways less well than I'd hoped. Oh well, maybe next time.

The weather has finally begun to be nice and I hope to get out and try a summer landscape soon.

Jen and Jon

Here's a value study of my lovely nice, Jen and her husband, Jonathon on their wedding day. I tried to forget avoid the stress of gaining a likeness and just concentrate on the values. Somehow this seemed to keep me from overworking the piece as I usually do and the overall work turned out a bit better than I had anticipated. Initially, I planned to do the flower in Jon's lapel with the wedding colors. Instead, I just stayed with the value of the graphite rather than making a last minute attempt to translate it to an color value. I suppose I lost my nerve . Oh, well as my dear friend, Kay says "Maybe next time".

Goldenrod Fields

Here's my rendition of my daugther in a field of goldenrods a few years ago. Using acrylics I attempted to work with light and experimenting with colors. I continued to fight with keeping the values thoughtout and of course to maintain the likeness. Also, I tried to do a dark underpainting and bring up the highlights. Although, it was far from what I wanted it was a great learning experience and quite fun.

"Sister's Dance"

Last December my wife and I attended a wedding of our friend's daugher, Anna. Anna has two sisters with whom she is very close. I was fortunate to snap a photo of Anna and her sister having fun after all the formal dancing was done. I liked the photo of so much that I wanted to try a graphite rendering. Although, I wasn't really satisfied with the result the girl's mother seemed to really like it when I gave it to her. I learned much as I do with each new project.

The Sunflower

Here's an acrylic I finallly completed after 2 months of
agonizing over color, form and light. The model was from my youngest daughter's high school graduation photo. Her favorite flower is of course the sunflower and I'm afraid I didn't do her justice. Well, maybe next time
can be better.