Red Shade

One more before I move onto paintings of a more airy nature.  Like so many other pictures I've painted, when I saw the original, I wondered when I was going to paint it.  Notice I said when, not if.   Since I've been struggling with portraits anyway, it was a perfect pairing.  

I knew I would have trouble in two areas.  First, of course the hair.  Secondly, the hand.  I painted several layers of skin (yes, I'm very happy that I got a good skin tone, and not just a yellowish, pinkish tone).  I left a little bit of a hard edge to some of them, but I don't think that matters very much.  The jacket came next.  I needed to have a color different than the skin and different from the hair.  Accomplished.  The hand needed a few details.   I have a friend who tells me, "Suggest, don't State." and so I dind't try to get the hand exactly perfect, rather just some lines and a little shading.  I actually think it works.  Lastly  the hair.  A lot of hair.   Normally my hair looks like a blob of color with some streaks in it.  This time I really tried to make it look super real.  I think I probably made about 20000 brushstrokes on her hair.  (OK that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but not by too much.)  I didn't want all the hair flowing in the same direction, and I didn't want it all the same color.  I tried to vary it with 3 to 4 different colors.  

Well, all in all I think I did a good job, maybe not stellar, but I bet, better than most.  Hope you enjoy.

Just a practice painting.  This is actually on the back side another painting in my sketch  book.  I was never intending this to be the greatest painting in the world, rather, I wanted to get some more experience with hair.  I think this hair is slightly better than some of the hair that I have done in the past.  I don't however think this is anywhere close to where I want to be.

The skin on her face got a little dark, I'll have to work on that too.

One thing I am happy about is that I drew this without any reference points or tracing.  I know its not the most technical thing i the world, but whenever I can do that and it looks like what it is supposed to look like, I am happy.

Enjoy.

Sketching

Ok, so, I've been doing some more quick sketching.  First off, here you see a pair of eyes.  I don't know why I am fascinated with eyes, but for some reason, I am.  Just did a quick draw, and then paint.  The left iris grew in size slightly as I was painting.  But I am happy that everything seems to be in proportion.   I'll keep trying.

I've recently gotten a small commission to paint a few birds.  Time to brush up on drawing and painting them.  I think that you all will be seeing a few of them over the next few weeks.  Probably a few different styles until I find out how I really wanna do them.

Well, anyway, just a few quick sketches like I said.  Hope you enjoy them.

May Eye Have a Cup Of Tea

Well, now that it is summer and things have slowed a bit, I can spend a bit more time painting.  I'm not spending a ton more time, but just enough to be able to pump a few paintings out a week.  A while ago, I got interested in drawing and painting portraits.  Most of them were horrible, and should never see the light of day.  Since I had a few that were unmentionable,  I thought it a good idea to learn how to paint eyes, mouths, noses, ears, basically all the components of the face in hopes of bieng able to put them together into a cohesive picture.  Well, I didn't really follow through in earnest with that.  I did, however, continue to draw eyes.  Here is one I did in a few spare minutes today.  Yes, I will admit to being influenced by some videos that I have seen on line recently.  (Maybe I shouldn't watch any videos on line.?)  Below is the the same eye, but before I finished it off.

Here is the first iteration of the eye.  It is a little flatter, and a little blander.  Somehow the eye really does seem to pop out more in the finished one.  Who'd've guessed?

Also, I was able to do a little extra doodling this morning.  I painted my tea cup.  It's not a traditional tea cup by any sense, rather its a man's tea cup.  It's hand made pottery.  And truth be told, its a travel coffee cup.  But in my little world, never shall coffee be introduced to your coffee cup for fear of adverse flavors in your tea.  So, this one has been my tea cup for years.

Hope you enjoy these quick pics.  Thank you.

More Grapes

Ok, well, I'm at it again.  Trying to put together a nice painting that someone would be proud to hang in their home or office.    This had great promise, but i think got a little muddled.  I like the grapes, I can live with the vines on the left, but the leaves in the middle, all kind of run together for me.  I tried so hard not to let them do it, but perhaps I should have tried to simplify my painting just a bit more.

Well, I'm not gonna sweat it much.  I'm enjoying painting again, and this one was a lunch hour painting.  The way I see it, I had a great time on my lunch hour, and when its all said, and done, the paintings not too bad.

Power Outage Painting

We had a power outage on camps yesterday.  It lasted about 40 minutes.  Just long enough to disrupt everyone's day, but not quite lone enough for anyone to really enjoy the extended break time.  I, being the quick witted one I am, grabbed paper and paint and set to work.

I originally tried to find my sketching partner, but after looking in his office and several of the classrooms in which he teaches, abandoned hope of finding him.  I set off across campus trying to find a place to sit down.  (by this time, nearly everyone had started to come out of the buildings, and was starting to enjoy the beautiful day.

I sat to start to paint, when after only about 2 minutes, it was announced that the power was back on, and we could all resume our normal day.  Well, I quickly finished, packed up, and went back to work.  What I got out of it was this nice little painting.  Enjoy

Sunglasses

I still don't think I've mastered hair, but I definitely think I'm getting better at it.  Ok, ok, it's a slow go to get better, but as Dr. Leo Marvin said to Bob Wiley, "Baby Steps."

My big regret with this painting is that the shadow on her cheek looks a little to linear.  I tried to fix it, but it didn't quite work out and I didn't want to futz too much.