Portrait Studies and more

A couple more of my portrait studies today. The first above is of a young girl who has been swimming so her  hair is wet. She is leaning forward because she was about to get into a wading pool and was talking to another child in the pool. Not sure how well I have done this.

The drawing above is done from a photograph in People Magazine. He is an actor though not one that I recognize. I think I have the face too long, between the eyes and the mouth. I hope the shadow at the top of his forehead works to indicate that his hairline is receding, despite the amount of hair he has elsewhere on his head.

As you can probably guess I am selecting my subjects to give me variety, young, middle aged, male, female, African American. Part of the purpose of this exercise is to give me practice drawing various faces with different expressions.

Below is an update on the flower pen and ink drawing I am working on.  

Background darks are filling in nicely and I have started with some of the flowers and the leaf areas. So far I am pleased with how this is coming along. Stippling takes forever esp. to get the really dark areas. It should go faster when I am working mainly on the flowers.

One last photo to share:

I made this Monday during the sunset. It is a view looking toward Boston, MA. (the skyline in the distance) from Nahant. I love the colors that grey/blue with the pink sky.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.

4th of July, Sunset and Fireworks

Hope everyone State side had a fun and safe 4th of July. A bit more about mine later in this post, but first the drawings I  have been working on. Above is my 2nd try at a portrait this go round. Done from a photo in an old Discover Magazine I had around the house. Not bad but not great, I have to continue to practice.

I have decided to try and do different ethnic faces if I can find source material. They are a bit more of a challenge for me, and good practice.

With that thought in mind I selected the next source drawing of an actor. It isn't quite him, the face should be a bit thinner and I didn't spend enough time on the mouth and teeth, but it is close enough that others who have seen this have guessed his name, Will Smith.

Next image is a work in progress and not a portrait:

This is done from the photograph I made of a Hosta starting to bloom. Not sure at this point if I will add color. I may or I may just leave it black and white. This is stipple work and so far I haven't used any lines (don't count the pencil lines they will be erased later)

Next I have a couple of photos from yesterday's 4th of July celebrations:

The first isn't a man made image, this is not photoshopped, the clouds actually did obscure parts of the setting sun last night long enough for me to make the above photograph. Looks like a face doesn't it. The location was Nahant looking across the bay to Revere/Lynn, MA. The tide was almost fully out and you can see the sun light reflected across the sand flats. The photo is cropped, but otherwise I have haven't made any changes.

We had had a lovely sunny day with a few clouds until toward evening some clouds moved in and some areas had thundershowers. Where I was we had only a bit of rain, but on my way home it was easy to tell that other areas had had far more. Thankfully the rain was early enough to not cancel the fireworks.

One last photo of some fireworks. Everything is blurred because the lens stays open too long, but still I sort of like this photograph. It does give some sense of the beauty of the fireworks last night. They had some really beautiful and different shells. It is amazing what the makers can do with them now a days. I don't recall many of the elaborate shell patterns we see now from when I was younger. But fireworks are always fun, and it was a great way to end my evening.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are welcome.

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.