Portrait Study #19

12" x 9", oil pastel and markers on paper

Finally…. another portrait attempt at a life drawing session I attended today.  It's been super busy these last few weeks but hopefully life will slow a bit  now and I'll get to draw and post more.

January

So far most of January has been devoted to a big house project: thoroughly cleaning and finishing our kitchen. That means scrubbing inside, outside, on top of, underneath everything and building the last two cabinets and putting in a tile backsplash.  Fun and rewarding but time consuming. All my creative energy has gone into that but I have been drawing everyday and stuck to my goal of a portrait a day. I'm not liking every one so I haven't been posting. Here are a few I do like:

great great grandfather

In addition to our kitchen, I've been going through and organizing ALL my photos---feels like I have thousands---which have been the inspiration for these portraits (with the exception of the last post).  Some of them are very old and faded with not much information, it's like I'm drawing ghosts. 

grandfather

grandfather

Granny Lita

Howard

William

Sarah

Kevin

I was flipping through a magazine and this image of the actress Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games) caught my eye. I like her expression.

Jennifer

Portrait Sketches in Prismacolor

Even though this summer I haven't been able to paint, I draw a little everyday.  For awhile I was doing a portrait a day to practice capturing faces.  In trying different drawing media I fell upon Prismacolor Markers and my drawing people routine morphed into doing some experimental abstract sketches.   Once I felt I was getting the hang of the markers, I returned to doing portraits and now I'm finally getting around to posting some of them (as some are really too bad to share!).  I think they're a bit odd (and a little off) but I'm really loving the medium.  I don't do any preliminary drawing, I just jump right in with the pens.  There's no going back on mistakes---I have to work with the marks I put down.  It's a joy to make these sketches.

Here are some of my favorites in order starting from the most recent (today):

Jonathan Toulin

Mrs. Nolan

Bob Smith

Gloria Smith

Mrs. Martin

Mrs. Sanders

Shane Winfield

LaVonda July

Christopher Koster

The Violin Player

The Chef

Man in Gray