Here’s a piece I started working on a while back. When I started it she had a different face and it didn’t inspire me to finish it. So I finally got around to re-working the face and I like her much better now.
Linking to Paint Party Friday because I haven’t partied in way too long!
PS: This painting is dedicated to my mom, whose birthday would be today. I love you and miss you Mom!
Yeah, I know I’ve been gone for a while. What can I say? My Muse has been on vacation and while I’ve been trying to entice her to come back she has obstinately refused to do so. I’ve been able to create a few things but nothing steadily. I did finish this doodle just this morning and thought maybe if I post, it would shame my muse into coming back to play. We’ll see if it works. Wish me luck.
What have you been up to?
I wanted to thank Kat Sloma of Kat Eye Studio for hosting the Liberate Your Art postcard swap and the blog hop. I received 6 gorgeous postcards that I want to share with you.
Under the image you will find the artists name.
1. DL Gould Designs (sorry I could not read the blog address.)
2. Jen Riley (no website address listed)
3. Kat Sloma
4. Barbara Evans
5. Elizbeth Gonzales
6. Kate Daniel
I want to thank the above individuals and all the participants for making this such a successful and fun project.
This is the postcard I traded. I’m sure some of you will recognize it. :)
Thanks again to everyone and be sure to visit the other blog hop participants.
Not having much time for art these last couple weeks. Needed to get this out, I hope Christi likes it. Christi provided some cool paper to journal on. I loved the gridded text and decided to let it show through.
We started something new this week, my “husband” bought the dvd’s for the Insanity workout for the both of us. I’ll have you know there is a reason they call it the “Insanity” workout; it’s because you have to be insane to do this workout if:
1. you are over 25 and
2. you are not in shape to begin with.
I’ll bet you can guess that I have hardly been able to move. Notice who I blamed (said “husband”) because I can hardly move my arms to paint….no, it’s not my fault I’m so out of shape. :)
Well after a week I have finally moved out of the “so sore I can hardly move” stage and was able to complete the painting of St Clare. And you’ll notice that I took some liberties with the color. The original painting by Simone Martini (1284-1344) is below my rendition.
The lesson for this weeks Diary of faces class was hands, but I feel that the position of the mouth and nose and the head cloth was more difficult than the hands in this painting.
Overall I’m happy with how it turned out.
Here is the original:
If you’d like to know more about St. Clare, visit this Link: St Clare
I’m linking to Paint Party Friday, please the other participants. There always lots of wonderful art to see.
What I have for this week’s Paint Party Friday entry are a couple of works in progress.
The first is an angel using one of my 29 faces sketches from May that I painted as a male last week but a female this week. (What a difference thin eyebrows make.) It’s still a work in progress as I need to do something to the background and the wings.
This next work in progress is for the Diary of faces class. I chose to work on a rendition of a portion of Simone Martini (1284-1344)- painting of Saint-Clare. I’ll show the full painting when I complete the painting. This week the focus was supposed to be hands but I’m having more problems with the shadows on the head cloth than the hands. Hopefully it will look better when it’s painted.
Any constructive criticism on the sketch is welcome. I’ve been looking at it so long I can’t tell if it’s all pointed in the right direction. :)
Thanks for stopping by. Please be sure to visit the other Paint Party Friday participants.
Here is my rendition of Nicolae Grigorescu’s painting named Gypsy's Head. Nicolae Grigorescu was a Romanian Painter, 1838-1907 and was one of the founders of modern Romanian painting. You can see more of his art by clicking here.
Here is my initial sketch
This is my painting, and it seems that somewhere in the middle of the painting she decided to look elsewhere than straight ahead. I mean, in my initial sketch and the original painting the eyes are looking straight ahead and now they are looking to the left. But over all I’m pleased with the results. At least she isn’t googly eyed right?
and below is the original work by the artist:
I’m linking to Paint Party Friday. Please go visit this blog and all the wonderful art by the participants.
One last note: And I have to say welcome back to my precious Little G who spent a confusing week away from his mama, papa and nana. My cautionary note for the week: If you’re thinking of taking a child away from his only source of security, please think of the child and not your own petty reasons for taking him. It took him quite a while to feel secure again that we weren’t going to leave him. I’m sure no one reading this blog would do that to a child but I had to say it. That’s all.
I don’t know how it happened !!! Whaaa?? ….Ok that’s a bit overly dramatic… I’ll back up 20 paces…Last night I pulled out one of my 29 faces sketches. I remember that the entire time I was drawing it, I was drawing a female … or so I thought. So I began by tearing away the excess paper and gluing the just head and neck to a 6” x 12” board. Then after it dried, I started painting this girl:
and right in front of my eyes, “she” turned into a surfer dude. I don’t know how it happened. Maybe it was the thicker eyebrows or the widening of the space between the eyes. The jaw looks a bit more “square” but that must have been surfer dude wanting to get out because I didn’t do that intentionally.
I think it’s OK though, because I kinda like him. He makes me want to visit the beach.
But I will have to try painting “her“ again later.
I’m back to faces, and I’ve been taking the Diary of Faces online class with Sharon Tomlinson of http://allnorahsart.blogspot.com/ In this class we are recreating faces painted by foreign artists. I found a self-portrait by Zinaida Serebriakova done in 1930 that I really liked and cropped it leaving just the head and shoulders. The full painting can be seen by clicking the artist’s name.
This is my rendition. It doesn’t look the same and no one is going to mistake it for the original but I am very happy with the result.
I’m not a very spiritual person but for some time now I have been fascinated by images of saints and angels. I’ve been to cemeteries to take photographs of the statues of angels and have even used one of them in my journal pages. You can see it here at the bottom of the long post.
When I was drawing this girl last month I had an urge to finish her as a saint but for some reason resisted. I finally decided to go for it:
The quote is:
Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.
by Mother Teresa.
Thanks for stopping by. I’d love to read your thoughts, so please leave a comment. :)
I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to paint or post this week. It’s been a busy week. We had two birthdays this week. My G’s have a birthday only 1 day apart. Little G is 2, and Big G is his Papa. We had a lovely birthday birthday dinner for Big G on Monday and although Little G’s birthday was on Tuesday, we’re having a birthday party for him on Saturday complete with 10 or 11 other little ones.Yikes! And we still have gifts to assemble. Oh my!
Here are my two birthday boys, Little G loves his grandpa, and wants to go everywhere with him.
This is what I worked on this week:
Linking to Paint Party Friday!
Back to my colored pencils.
The sweetest flower that blows,
I give you as we part.
For you it is a Rose,
For me it is my heart.
- Quote by Frederick Peterson
And from Janis Joplin “I need a man to love”
The quote and the video have related themes of unrequited love.
I’ve always loved Janis. She passed the year I graduated high school. (boy does that date me.) It was a sad day for rock n roll.
Linking to Paint Party Friday. Thanks to Eva and Kristin for hosting and for giving me a reason to finish my journal page. :) Be sure to click the link and visit all the participants.
Something a little different than my usual fare.
The text says:
My Dog!
I talk to him when I'm lonesome like; and I'm sure he understands. When he looks at me so attentively, and gently licks my hands; then he rubs his nose on my tailored clothes, but I never say naught thereat. For the good Lord knows I can buy more clothes, but never a friend like that. ~W. Dayton Wedgefarth
I used gouache mixed with water and I spread it all over the page. When it was dry, this is what I saw!
I’m linking to Summer of Color 2 - week three
I am so intimidated by watercolor paints (not pencils) that I’m surprised I had the courage to try this portrait. Then I got to thinking….It’s only cheap paint and cheap watercolor paper so why not? Sometime ago I bought a set of Reeves watercolors ( yes the cheap, cheap, cheap …seriously cheap brand) so that I could use them for background color in my journals. I never did use them for that purpose and I still had them around. So really what did I have to lose except time?
I penciled in the girls face and then procrastinated painting it. I liked the drawing…what if I ruined it? “OMG”, I told myself, “Shut up and paint!” So I did, I guess I just needed a good talking to. You talk to yourself too, don’t you? ;-)
I have to say, watercolors are a different medium from what I’m used to. It’s going to take some time to get comfortable with it. I’m not liking the dark, dark shadows of her hair around her neck nor do I like the obvious lines on her face from a not well blended changes in skin color. But I guess it not a terribly horrible first attempt.
I did learn that you must tape your sheet down or the paper buckles badly. I had to rewet the back and place a book over it to flatten it. I hoped it wouldn’t ruin it. I also learned I need to practice drawing flowers.
For your listening pleasure “Emmaline” by Hot Chocolate.
Be warned, it’s got some sad lyrics toward the end.
I’m linking to Paint Party Friday. Thank you Eva and Kristin for hosting the fun party. Everyone else please sure to click the link to visit this week participants.
As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Kristin is hosting the The Summer of Color 2: Ice Cream Inspirations! blog event. Thank you Kristin. We are now in week two and this weeks theme is Mint Chocolate Chip.
I worked mainly with watercolor pencils, stamps for the background, and printed text. I think mine turned out a little greener than the inspiration. Oops.
The quote on the page is from the song titled “Green-eyed Lady” from Sugarloaf. It’s an oldie but a goodie. If you’ve never heard it before, click the video link below. PS: Even though it’s a video link, it’s just the audio and the album cover. For a real video check www.YouTube.com for the 7+ minute version.
I didn’t get a chance to visit all the participants last week but I hope to this week. I had planned to spend the weekend blog hopping but I ended the week with a case of food poisoning after a visit to a local restaurant on Friday. Yuck! Weekend ruined. All is A-OK now, thank goodness.
Be sure to visit all the participants, there is some lovely art work to be seen.
Hi everyone. I haven’t been arting it up much this last week. Don’t know why, probably just a little tired. The hot weather seems to do that to me…even with air-conditioning. Yet, I’d rather it be summer than winter. How about you? Are you a cold weather person or hot?
This is what I did manage to work on…. I used mainly watercolor pencils for the painting and markers for the lettering. To create lettering, I used Photo Shop Elements and after printing to regular paper, I traced them using graphite paper. Then used Pitt markers to color them in.
I had previously colored her outfit blue but had a change of heart and wanted it pink instead. I used scrapbook paper to change the color.
I’m linking this to:
Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate all your sweet comments and constructive criticisms. ;)
Yes I am ticked off. Several weeks ago I configured my blog to collect comments using a third party service named intensedebate.com. Over the weekend something happened to “turn it off” and I lost all but a few of the comments in my “Girl Painted” post. What’s funny is that it’s still turned on in other posts… What the #@$%??
I had over 30 comments in that post and I was lucky to have been able to read most of them. However, I hadn’t had a chance to respond and now they are g-o-n-e. If you were one of the many sweet people who left me a very kind message and I didn’t respond…now you know why.
Thank you for leaving such encouraging comments. I’m just sorry that I didn’t respond right away. I took it for granted that it would always be there. I should know better.
I drew this face with graphite pencils for the 29 Faces challenge but I just got around to painting her. I used Watercolor pencils, gouache for the final highlights and regular colored pencils for the final dark shadows.
Linked to Paint Party Friday.
The face from a few days ago has been bothering me for a while now. I know I probably shouldn’t let it bother me…. buutt… It’s like I should know better and yet couldn’t figure out what was wrong. That is, until I visited Tam’s willowing's ning site site. In the forum, she had taken the time to critique user’s painted faces. She, very kindly and generously, told them how she thought they could improve the painting.
There was a face up for critique that was very similar to the one I did. What she said about that painting that also applied to mine was that the forehead/top of the head was too small. Well duh! That was it. Plus I thought the lips were too large as well.
I didn’t redo the actual painting, I took the image into Photoshop Elements and made the adjustments there. Sheesh! It might have been faster to correct the actual painting. Don’t look too closely at the corrected image: it’s a mess because I’m not a real whiz at PSE. However, I think it was a huge improvement. Also, it helped me “see” that little changes can make all the difference in the world. (the forehead and the lips were all I changed). Here are the before and after.
Before:
After:
With all the surgery she’s gone though, poor girl deserves a name. (With a nod to my friend Jenny, because she names all her girls.)
Meet Bernadette.
Sniff, sniff…she no longer looks like a flat headed child that only a mother could love. Oh wait…I wasn’t too crazy about her before…I’m a bad mama.
If you’re still reading, what do you think?
Thanks for your sweet comments.
After my last face I had to go back to my pencils and it makes me feel better. The only bad part was trying to get a decent image of a black and white pencil drawing. Neither camera or scanner would show the paper as a true white. I used Photoshop Elements to turn the background white but the girl doesn’t look true to color. Not to mention that there are specks in the image that are not on the drawing. Oh well not going to worry about it.
Her hair looks a little puffy but I actually de-puffed it (is that a word?) after the first photo I took. Can you imagine?
I read somewhere that if your drawing looks elsewhere than straight on they appear to be more expressive. Not sure I managed to do that but it was an interesting tidbit nonetheless.
I will probably color her later on but right now I will enjoy her as is.
I don’t know why I’m posting this as it frustrated me while I was painting it and now just to look at it. I’ve drawn worse, much worse, but after all the nice faces I created during 29 faces challenge to come up with this one is just WRONG. lol!
I guess I’m posting it to remind me that the supplies I use do make the difference when you’re inexperienced. I used Fluid acrylics on scrapbook paper covered in clear gesso. What? Yeah that’s what I did. What can I say in my defense except that I wanted in my journal and that was the next page.
In an effort to make it look right, I added layer after layer of paint and colored pencils and nothing seemed to make it look any better. I redid the eyes…still nothing. By the time I got to the hair, I just didn’t care anymore.
If that wasn’t enough, I knocked over the bottle of black paint and got it all over my dining room table given to us by my mother in law…you know what means. Yeah me too.
And I got it all over the cover of my journal, so now it’s a mess too. When that happened I said “F#@& it, I’m done.” So here it is in all it’s glorious ugliness.
It’s OK, I’m laughing.
Thanks for visiting and for your lovely comments.
I like to think that I’m good with change but in reality I’m not. It takes me a while to adjust and accept the new reality. Like moving to New Mexico, for example. It took me more than a year to resign myself to my new life away from California.
I think it might be the same for painting faces with acrylics rather than colored pencils. That’s not to say that I’ve never painted a face in acrylics before. I painted a portrait of my daughter a few years ago that came out rather nice. But I worked on that painting for months before I was happy with it and even then I knew I didn’t get the highlights and the shadows right. It was very even in tone. You can see it here.
I worked on this face painting yesterday and hoped to get it done completely in acrylics. However, I just couldn’t get the shadows right. I ended up using my colored pencils after all. Comparing it to my colored pencil drawings makes me feel like I’m back to square one. Oh I know if I keep practicing with the paint, I’ll eventually get it. It’s just tough to adjust to my new self-imposed reality. I just have to remind myself…that’s how I learn.
Thanks for your visit. I love comments so please leave me one.
After deciding to post a compilation image with all the faces I realized that I hadn’t actually drawn 29 different faces. I only finished 26 and I’m OK with that.
Thankfully the rules of the challenge allowed for posting “in progress” images and that’s what I did for the first three faces. Had that not been allowed, I might not have made it through to the end of the challenge. I might have gotten discouraged because my drawing was going soooo slowly in the beginning (due to all the erasing I was doing ;). With practice I learned to erase faster. ha ha
I decided to post only my favorite faces. Not that I don’t like the others but I think I learned something or did something different with each of these. I drew a lot of “pretty” girls in this challenge. For my next phase, I think I’d like to try my hand at drawing the more freaky girl, like the one smack dab in the middle.
I posted at the beginning of the challenge that I had just started taking Suzi Blu’s Portrait 2012 series class. I’m about half way though it now and while I don’t want to copy her style, which I adore by the way, I sure have learned a lot from her about drawing faces and shading. For some reason, she has a teaching style that I get. Here’s a link to her ning site, if your interested: http://suziblu.ning.com/
Thank you all for visiting and for your lovely comments. I appreciate every one of them.
Well this is the last day for the 29 Faces challenge and I think I’m going to miss it. Well it’s not the official last day of the challenge, that’s tomorrow. But it’s my last face, my 29th…OMG did I really make it to the end? Can’t believe I did…along with so many others. I’m proud that we didn’t quit when it would have been easier to do so. I’m thrilled with the new friends I’ve made and my new followers. Thank you for the follow.
I want to thank Martha, who sponsored and coordinated the 29 faces challenge. Her cool blog is at http://ilove2paint.blogspot.com/ so be sure to visit with her. She also has some awesome videos on her YouTube channel. Click here to go to: Martha's YouTube channel.
This is my one and only profile face. I hope to get better at it as I practice more and I plan to do a lot of practicing.
I hope you all had a wonderful 3 day weekend. Ours was quite but nice. My daughter, my grandson and I ran through the sprinklers yesterday to cool off. It was a first for Little G but he loved it. We laughed our butts off and by the end we were all soaking wet. Great times.
Here’s a sketch of my first 3/4 face. It’s so much harder to get the eyes, nose and mouth right than I thought it would be. I’m still not sure I got them right. Didn’t concentrate on the hair at all so she looks like she just got out of bed….and without having a good time at that. Humph! Oh well, maybe next time.
I’ll take any hints, techniques etc…that you can give on how to make them look better. Thanks.
Thank you for visiting and for your encouraging comments.
My first male face in ages. I’ve only drawn two males faces before. One the face of an old boyfriend and later, one of my sweet husband before he became my husband. Those were drawn years and years ago. I decided last night that I need to do a male face for this challenge. I found an image I liked on the internet and went at it. I didn’t want to recreate the same face, I mostly wanted the hat and clothing of the fellow. The chair back is my addition. I could have added more detail to the chair but was running out of time.
He looks like he’s a little stressed at having to sit for his portrait. He’s got his shoulders hunched up like he’s ready to bolt. This quote fits:
“Few persons who have ever sat for a portrait can have felt anything but inferior while the process is going on.” ~ Anthony Powell
I have to say that drawing men is harder than women.
I hope you all are having a wonderful 3 day weekend. Husband and I are getting a massage later today and I’m looking forward to that. Otherwise, I don’t think we’ll do much, maybe go to a movie and relax.
I have to thank my dear husband, Big G, for getting my car a new battery today. Yesterday when I went to pick up Little G, my grandson, from daycare my car wouldn’t start when we were leaving. The battery was dead. I had to call Big G to come and start the car with jumper cables. Luckily, he was there in a hurry because it was HOT in the car. We were on our way in no time thanks to my sweet man.
Here’s my next face with a little Zentangle doodles thrown in.
What are your plans for the weekend?
Back to the shipping tags. I love the silky smoothness of the paper used for the tags. I bought these at a rubberstamp store instead of a office supply store. Do they get different paper?? I didn’t think to ask.
I went to Hoppy Lobby the other day to check to see if their “tagboard” paper was the same as these shipping tags but I found that what they had was thinner and not as smooth. So I didn’t spend the money.
Otherwise, I think Bristol or Vellum (not the see through kind) might be a better alternative. I doubt the shipping tags are acid free.
Here is my day 25 face, she’s a bit older than my other girls but she’d only pose if I promised not to show her wrinkles. :)
Thanks for visiting and all your lovely comments.
Here’s my newest girl, if she looks a little greenish it’s not because she’s jealous of all the other girls in today’s set of 29 faces lovelies (and they are so lovely). Nope it’s because she’s a girlie tree all the way down to her roots.
If I had it to do over again, the hair/leaves would not be outlined.
I plan to add this quote to the drawing later on:
If art is to nourish the roots
of our culture, society must
set the artist free to follow his
vision wherever it takes him.
~~ John F Kennedy
I'm also linking this to Paint Party Friday.
Thanks for visiting and for your very encouraging comments. I’m soaking them up. :)
This is purely a practice face. LOL….No really. I was drawing another face altogether and was looking at hairstyles on the internet and found one I liked. Before I committed that hair to the other drawing, I wanted to practice it on scrap paper. I grabbed what was closest to me and didn’t care that it had smudges on it because, after all, I was just going to practice drawing hair.
Before I knew it, I had a whole face drawn. Now I wish I’d used clean paper..
Oh well, I still like her. :)
When I first started this drawing, the background was going to be a daylight-ish color. Then I made a mistake with the hair shadows….I made the shadows too dark and it looked very weird… so I corrected it by making it a starry night. I guess we have to be flexible, huh? And don’t make fun of her weird shoulder line…she was born that way. ;-)
Drawn on a shipping tag using Prismacolor colored pencils and a black Derwent Inkense pencil.
I never thought I’d say this but I‘m going to miss the challenge of drawing a face every day. I’d love to say that I’ll keep doing it on my own but I know that without the challenge I probably won’t. I need that extra push to make me sit down and draw daily. I just may have to find another face challenge. Know of one? If so, please let me know.
This is on a shipping tag that is 3.25” x 6.25”. I love the paper that these tags are made from. It’s very smooth and erases easily.
Thanks for visiting.
I don’t usually “try” to create an odd or quirky faces, although I admit sometimes they just come out that way. But this time it’s on purpose. I’ve been so intent on getting it *right* for the last 20 or so days that today I needed to have a little fun with this face.
Meet Glenda:
She’s ATC sized, drawn with colored pencils, and a black pen.
Last week was a loooong week. I was so happy to see Saturday! All I did today, besides drawing, was laundry and a little window shopping. It was a nice quiet day…until about 5:30 when Little G. came home with his mama. That little stinker is one noisy little guy.
Finding some quiet time in your life, I think, is hugely important.
~~ Mariel Hemingway
Have I mentioned that I really like using a pencil for art? When I was in college (many, many moons ago) I took a drawing class and really enjoyed it. I don’t know why I stopped drawing after the class. I wish I’d kept it up.
Anyway, during that time, I reproduced a Frank Frazetta poster in pencil and was probably one of my most time consuming works ever (back when I had time and patience.) and one of the best. Here is a link to the poster I “copied”, it’s name is “Silver Warrior.” I saw it in a book about Mr. Frazetta and I just loved it.
By the way it was copied for my personal use only, which was as drawing practice. In fact, I still have it somewhere…storage probably??
What I’m leading up is, are we, as art consumers, biased against the pencil arts? I’ve visited many arts shows over the years and yet in all that time I’ve only seen a handful of pencil artists, those who use pencils as their main medium. There are painters of all types including a multitude of watercolorists, oil painters and acrylic artists. They dominate the art market. I wonder why that is? In my last post I added a link to an artist video and blog who draws the most amazing portraits, including beautiful hair, and yet his blog doesn’t get very many hits or comments. It got me to wondering if there is a bias and if so why? What do you think?
Here’s my face for the day.
When I first drew this girl, I did her hair with colored pencils and it looked “OK” at 11:00 pm..LOL When I looked at it the next day, she looked like she was bald up to the middle of her head….yikes. Nothing I did with the pencils helped. So I used acrylics to redo the hair. She no longer looks bald but is it any better? I don’t think so….now her hair looks like mine…..gray with a bad perm. ha ha ha (I laugh as if it’s really funny…sadly it’s not.)
Be sure to visit Denthe’s blog because she draws awesome faces and hair and is also taking part in the 29 faces challenge. Which is why I begged her for information on how to draw hair and she, very unselfishly, obliged. So I want to give a big thank you shout out to Denthe for sending me a link to an awesome video on how to draw hair. Too late for this girl but if you’d like to see the video, click here. Denthe also has the link to the video on her website.
