Infant Pastel

Newborn Infant Grandchild (click to see the complete picture)
This is a picture of my friend and neighbor's new grandchild. I saw the image and decided to experiment with pastels. I liked it so I decided to give it to my friend. She and her daughter liked it so I decided to post it here.

Anyhow...I also posted it on the Cennini Forum. I had some positive comments.

I would like to take a course in pastels sometime.

Drawings

The following are some tonal studies (about 8x10) from photos of great masterpieces printed in a book of about the same size. I did these to work on the five tonal ranges: Highlight, Halftone, Reflected Light Values, Shadow, Cast Shadow. I also attempted to "see" the expressions and replicate the feeling. Can you guess which drawing was the hardest?
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8border="0" alt="Girl In Red Hat after Vermeer">


The fourth one was the hardest. The object was to express the height of femininity. All the edges were soft except for a very few. It took me many hours to draw this one. The last one number eight was also difficult because Vermeer is so complex and without color chroma, it was almost impossible to provide the punch it needed. All in all this was excellent exercise. I intend to do more especially since I finished Riven Pheonix five DVD on the structure of man...that is a real milestone. I can already see the mistakes I have made in these faces but I am getting there. Gee I am happy. January 31st I head to Cennini's Art Boot Camp and I am so ready to go.

January Drawings

This of course is not a drawing, it is a watercolor of "Rebecca".














































Here is another pencil drawing. Self Portraits are very difficult.




This is a quick self portrait. It's done with watercolor pencils so technically it is a drawing. I exaggerated my features...like a fish bowl...chin/mouth too big; upper part too small...it is so distorted...but I like it for some reason.

Self portraits are very difficult for me. To exaggerate and make myself look either better or worse is dishonest. Too much information; too little. The truth is, I've never really studied myself and I don't really know what I actually look like. That makes drawing self portraits extremely difficult to do and difficult to judge.



Here is a complete drawing. This image is of very poor quality for it looks like I have drawn on 40% grey paper when in fact it is white. I am still trying to learn how to take pictures with my new camera...I thought I had the right exposure...guess I thought wrong. I shot it in RAW format and tried to adjust the exposure ... I think I made it worse. Soooo....I will be updating the image as soon as I can figure this out.

I am very frustrated because this image does not show the subtle rendering on the face....especially the expression and eyes which really is not coming across in this image. In fact I am not happy with any of the images that I have posted. I guess I simply don't know what I am doing...but I will figure it out eventually.

December Drawings

A Work In Progress




(None of the sketches on this section are keepers. This is just practice to show that I am working. Several of these were done on some very old sketch paper that had turned with age ... just to be frugal on my supplies. I tried to lighten this some but it is still too dark. Still fiddling with my camera settings.)





More practice on old newsprint. I've posted these because they are good likenesses.

Mom


Ozzie


Work In Progress -- this is done with some cheap watercolor pencils. Kind of fun...don't know if I will finish it. That is about how it goes with me...never finishing anything.