Thursday, January 27, 2011

"Spring Hat" revisited





I finally broke down and added some much needed highlights my last April's "Spring Hat." Sometimes it's so difficult to revisit a work but in this case I knew sooner or later I would do what I am some of my fellow artists have encouraged me to do. Thanks to Connie for reminding me to be more conscious of the impact of the light especially on a portrait like this. The difficulty here lied in the fact that model photo had the the eyes almost completely in shadow and I wanted to change it. It's so difficult, if not impossible, to make up light and it seemed to me to be so synthetic to make to attempt. However, since I had changed the light on the eye are in the original work I was rather committed to doing it right and I hadn't done so. Here is my attempt to do it correctly if that's possible. I had to change the highlights in much of the face in order to balance things out and although it took me most of the day I think it was worth doing. I'm pleased with the result although I wouldn't want to have to repeat it.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Katie


Here's my latest venture into the world of colored pencils (Prismacolor Colored Pencils). I found that I very much enjoy working with them although they are quite time consuming. The end result is worth the time. I really enjoyed this one because of the practice I got to with blending to get l specific colors not in a single pencil. The most enjoyment however, came because it was done a very special person in my life; my cousin, Jan. Jan is like a sister to me and we share so many childhood memories; some of them being our love for dogs. This one's for you Jan.