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.

Rhaja, the Chocolate Lab

Last week I finished up a workshop on using colored pencil on Drawspace and given by Artist, Jeanette Jobson. Jeanette is a marvelous teacher and I learned so much through her guidance. I just hope I can remember all I learned and put it into practice. There were so many talented artists in the workshop including my dear friends Kay and Clara who have been so instrumental in encouraging me to try new mediums such as acrylics and now colored pencil.

Currently, I'm in the midst of our Prehistoric Card Trade and will be posting the cards as soon as the trade ends in early December. Afterwards, I may well make a run at pastels.

Woman with Curls

The past two weeks I've been experimenting with colored pencils and drawing the "Woman with Curls" is the result. I never intended to make this a finished work but after trying several blending techniques I added a background and threw on the outfit to make it "finished". My learning is never finished and I enjoyed learning the blending techniques symbolized here.