First of July

I can't believe it is already the first of July. We have been having some lovely June days this week, mostly sunny skies (with a few puffy clouds) temps into the low 80's during the day and falling into the 60's at night so it has been good sleeping weather. I haven't done a lot of drawing this week. But in thinking about what I want to do next week since I won't have the figure session to go to I decided to try some portraits.

Above is my first attempt in a while to draw a portrait. I chose a photograph I had made this spring of a young relative of a friend. I am semi pleased with it, but it took me a lot longer to do then I expected. Course the faces I have been drawing haven't been detailed portraits and they have all been adults. Children have different proportions to their faces and I was looking down at her when I made the photograph so it was interesting to say the least to get the distances even semi correct.

I picked up a People magazine at the store yesterday to use the celeb photos as references for my drawings. It will be interesting to see if I can create recognizable portraits from some of them.

I am thinking about doing another flower colored pencil drawing. The sketch above is the preliminary drawing of some Birds Foot Trefoil. I think it is OK, so now I just have to transfer it to better paper and get started. Hopefully I will have some progress to show next week.

One last photograph.

Above is a photo of Indian Pipe. A common (at least here in MA.) parasitic plant. They feed on the leaf litter in the woods and have no chlorophyll to produce their own food. I have been trying to years to get a good photograph of a clump of these and think I finally managed it. A combination of a better camera and a good flash with a dark background to show off the white stems and flowers. I had the camera last year, but didn't find any of the plants growing with the right backdrop. This photo was made earlier this week at the North River Audubon Sanctuary.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are welcome. I want to wish any Canadian visitors a good Canada Day, and for my US visitors have a wonderful 4th of July. Don't go too crazy with the fireworks folks, they can be dangerous.