Emma Again - Sketch

I've been planning to do another painting of my granddaughter but took a little time to re-organize my painting space. It was getting a little difficult to squeeze into the area where I paint. I had to move some stuff to the attic that my son left in that room almost ten years ago when he left for Florida in 2004. He had planned to leave the day hurricane Ivan flooded out Carnegie. Fortunately, I live on a hill, but alot of his stuff never got packed onto the truck under the circumstances. I now have more elbow room and it's less distracting when I want to paint. I also watched an art video on drawing faces and that seemed to get me started on the sketch. I hadn't enjoyed drawing as much the last few years because I couldn't wait to get to the color. But after watching the videos, I realized that I needed some practice on faces and proportions. I also don't like the way she is holding her hand in the photo and I went through dozens of photos to find her holding her hand in a more pleasant position. Here's the preliminary sketch (I'm still working on the hand.)   



Old Sketch No. 2

I had trouble loading two images at the same time so here is the second one:



Old Sketches

In keeping with my original objective of posting some of my old work and while I'm on the subject of portraits, here are a couple of old sketches I did many years ago while I was in my early twenties. One is a sketch of Richard Burton (obviously I copied a photo) and another was of an acquaintance (old boy friend whose name I can't remember). While I was at Point Park, I used to sketch classmates before the class started, usually in profile because that was easier. One of the professors wanted me to do his portrait (I think it was a Dr. Buncher), but I had a lot of trouble getting a likeness. There were several of my classmates watching while I drew. At one point, I mentioned that I was having trouble getting his chin right and one of my classmates said,"No wonder, that's because he has two." So there may be quite a few of my portrait sketches out there if people kept them and the paper didn't disintegrate. 

Tutu and Tootsies

 

I don't know what possessed me to do a portrait when I haven't been painting for a while. I got some new pictures of my granddaughter and I couldn't resist. I wasn't sure what to do for the background; she was leaning up against a white louver closet door and sitting on brownish tile. I didn't want to get too detailed on the background, but not sure if this works.

Is there a method for painting a tutu? Should it be more detailed?

 



Seascape No.2



This is the try again seascape, but this time I made it lighter and used a slightly different arrangement. I used regular watercolors, but for some reason, it looks like I used watercolor pencils.

Try Again

I don't know what made me think a watercolor seascape would be an easy "get back into it" painting. Not my best work, but it's a start, again. It's a little fuzzy at the edges because the paper was larger than my scanner. I'm not happy with the waves--I used some old liquid frisket (masking fluid) and didn't mix it up as well as I should have. I couldn't remove it in some places because the coloring in it stained the paper. There were supposed to be white sea shells in the sand, but they came out pink. I might try this again.

December Update

I've gotten a little behind on my artwork and posting. I didn't get as much done this summer as I expected. I had a few setbacks. One being my other older cat got sick and died which I did not expect although she was 16 years old this summer. I also had two episodes of atrial fibrillation (spelling?). One at the end of June and another on November 1. It takes me about a month to get back to normal again. Fortunately I got out of the hospital in time to go to my older son's wedding that Saturday. I haven't even gotten around to doing a Christmas card this year. I hope to get back to painting again after Christmas providing everything stays "normal." It's a little disconcerting to realize that you can't always plan too far ahead when you get older.

As Far As I Got - Sketch

My sister had some beautiful maroon roses in her yard that looked like velvet and I thought one would be nice in a still life painting. But I was trying to get some spring cleaning done at the same time and this sketch is as far as I got on this "painting." It's a good thing I took a photo because the rose wilted before I could get to the painting part.

I've also been trying to get caught up on my outside work (weeding) since we had so much rain in May. All I seem to have gotten done when we had a brief dry spell was to get the grass cut. Then it got too hot for a few days to work outside--inside, too, until we got the air conditioners in the windows. (No central air here--yet.)

I would also like to enter the latest DailyPaintworks Challenge, which is to paint something that you see out of your window. Yesterday I tried to rearrange furniture on my porch and put some flowers in pots so I have something interesting to look at and paint. Still not done with the porch and it's already June. Too much to do during the summer.

Grandma's Vase with Tulip, Oil Pastel 7x9

I'm still playing around with oil pastel to see what I can get it to do. I'd really like to get it to look like regular oil paints. (I should probably give up and just use oils, but I don't like the smell.) It's painted on tinted watercolor paper with a coat of Art Spectrum Colourfix primer, clear. I think if I used a smoother paper it would look more like an oil painting, but I sort of like the effect of the texture of the paper that shows through in the background. I might enter this in the Color Challenge of Daily Paintworks if I can figure out if it qualifies for one of the color schemes. That was the original intent when I started, but where is brown on the color wheel?