Here's a commission just finished for a dear friend of her grand-son. I initially began in acrylics but decided to go with prismatic colored pencils. I wanted to use the chair in the reference photo to frame the face and form and used cool colors to draw attention to the face and hair which I wanted to keep warm and delicate.
Great fun !

"Thinking" 9" X 12" graphite
Continuing to work on capturing expression with eyes. Here's a  study from a reference photo. It is incredibly difficult to pull an expression from a photograph. It is difficult enough with a live model. It's just difficult to get a model in the right lighting to pose for the time it takes me to capture the expression until I get more practice.  I'm working on speed at this point so I can work from natural light when I'm out and about.

I've been working on capturing personality with my portraits. Here is a graphite study I call "Donna". I want to practice with several small sketches in graphite before returning
to the pastels.Now that the weather is getting nice in WV I hope to venture outside more and work on this with some life studies in oil.That's the plan if I can manage the time.

"Aggie" 11" X 14" Pastels
I completed this in January after the passing of my
dear Aunt. I'm still trying become accustom to pastel
pencils. I was intrigued by her smile in a picture of her
prior to her getting married. Such a beautiful smile that

I'm afraid I couldn't capture but could only approximate.