Portrait in Pencil

It had been a while since I last made a drawing and so I pulled out this magazine I had set aside. It had a few photographs that had caught my attention. I had picked up the The Peak while holidaying recently, in Kota Kinabalu, expecting to make some drawings at the airport. I never got around to it then but it came in handy tonight.

In these past 20 years since I left school it was usually a portrait photograph in a magazine that caught my attention and compelled me to sit down and draw it. Or a photograph of a friend. Either the smile or the angle or just because I liked them something would set it off.  This didnt happen often maybe once every 3-4 years.  Off late I use mostly my own photographs to copy because of all the problems associated with using others references.

But without doubt there are some exceptional photographs that tempt you and ones that I’d never be able to take. These I set aside to learn from, to try and take my own photograph from a similar angle or with similar lighting. I have yet to do that though. I’m a pack rat and a very good one at that.  You should see my collection!  However if the urge is strong sometimes I just give in and copy. And  95% or more of what I do is put up either in these blogs or Flickr.

Sadly, this was not one of those exceptional ones though I did like his smile. It was late at night, I was already in bed and determined to draw something anything. That very smile looks a bit manic here but that’s mostly to do with my drawing skills. I’ve noticed that my current favourite is painting and drawing has been put back on the shelf.  I hope I can get back to doing both.

My first swap

A project that I am participating in involves exchanging paintings of portraits. Read more in A Portrait Swap.

Here’s a crop of the beautiful painting of me that’ll be here soon.

And below is the one I’ll be mailing out in a weeks time.  Finished it a short while back and now waiting for it to dry.  It’s 12″ X 12″ oil on canvas.

Black Box Invention – It eats money

After hearing what my husband had to say and few other comments that I received, I realised that I had not expressed my thoughts adequately in the painting above. Not that I am any better with words but I would like to give it a try.

Background: Eleven years of work experience followed by six years of unemployment. Most of these out of choice. I realised that I did not want to go back. Four of the last 6 years has been spent looking for the one thing that would provide enjoyment and a little income. When over 2 years ago I rediscovered my love of drawing I decided that this had potential. Draw, paint and sculpt. Put in a couple of years and see if there was a possibility of earning some money. At least enough to cover the art supplies and book expenses.

It’s been well over two years now and of late this thought has been on my mind. Yesterday I saw it come out as a painting. The painting above started as an illustration for this weeks topic “invention” on Illustration Friday. Normally the drawings made for these challenges are single objects or standalones. Yesterday, I proceeded along the same lines with an idea of a box but I got lost in its making and it took a life of its own. I felt I had more to say and just the box on it own was not enough.

Invention: The black box eats a lot of money and occasionally spits out a painting. Some good, found hanging on my walls, and some bad on the floor. All still with me! And then there is me standing on the right with weighing scales in my hand to show that if I look back on the past two years, a lot of money has gone in for the few pieces that were made.

Wouldnt it be fantastic if the box could take my paintings and spit out some money? More and more, I want this interest of mine to support itself. I will take notice and consider steps to bring the scale to a more balanced level. And if the attempt is unsuccessful, I will look at part time and other options. Notice that there is no talk of giving up on painting

Here are a few sites that I’ll be looking to try – CafePress / Zazzle / Art.com. Etsy and ebay are not amongst these as I’m unsure of the effectiveness of the postal system here.

This piece is digital and has been made with Art Rage 2. Like the “Man with the Pipe“, I would like to make this in acrylic too.

A bird

There are just one or two small and very rough sketches of crows in my collection. I seem to have stayed far away from drawing birds and animals with the exception of cows. This one is not from life. It was from a reference found in an article on beating bird flu! There were 4 steps to turning the reference into a finished drawing for a post relating a story of the results of my search on how the turkey got its name for the Illustration Friday topic for this week – Thanksgiving.   One other advantage of using the digital medium is the ability to carry out various action on the object.  Here the bird was flipped over to the other side as I wanted to place the speech bubble to the right.

Made with Art Rage 2 from a photo reference.

Toothy Smile

One more for the November Challenges thread at the Painters Alley, WetCanvas. This is one of the subforums under Digital Art and is for images painted using the techniques of a traditional painter without filters, effects, cloning, paint overs, or plugins. Images using those methods are posted in the regular digital art forum.

Made with Art Rage 2 from a selection of photo references provided by the moderator.

Man with a cap

I’m having a problem with the portrait that I’m painting for a Portrait Swap. Went to WetCanvas! to look around and found the November Challenges thread in Painters Alley (digital forum). Here’s my attempt at drawing one of the references provided – the Man with a Cap.

There is a problem with likeness and I seem to make everybody without exception look much older than they are!! I know now that harsh and dark lines are the main reason and I’m trying to keep that in mind while drawing. I’m also trying to be concious of the the 3Dness of the subject so that makes one more addition to my list – practice shading to give an object form.

Digital.  Made with Corel Painter IX.5.  I’ve used various shades of Conte crayons.