Mrs. Kindron

Finally, the last of the teachers' portraits for the year. Next year I'll try not to kill myself by putting these off until May. I hate stressing about whether or not I'll be able to complete the last one.

Mrs. Ball

Here's one of my youngest's preschool teachers, Mrs. Ball.

Mrs. Gutowski

My youngest son's preschool teacher, Mrs. Gutowski.

Mr. Patterson - Final

OK, so I'm under a little pressure to complete four portraits for my children's teachers by the time school gets out. Here's the first one, Aidan's teacher, Mr. Patterson. He's got a great face for drawing - lots of character. Hopefully I did him justice. You never know how they'll react. Mrs. Gleaves remarked that I put in her wrinkles, but she still liked it. We'll see what Mr. Patterson thinks when I give it to him next month...

Miss Cynthia - WIP 1

I ran out of time at the end of the last school year and couldn't get a portrait of Miss Cynthia, my son's preschool assistant teacher, done in time. And I didn't have a reference photo I was happy with. I managed to find one and have spent a few weeks working on this so far - I hope to have it done in a week or so, and then I'll be able to give it to Miss Cynthia.


This is the first portrait I've done on Bristol Smooth paper, and so far, I really like it. I know it doesn't have much tooth, so I'm trying not to use the blending stump very much - only in the larger areas of skin to even them out.

Mrs. Lewis - WIP 1

Here is the last of my three sons' teachers' portraits, this time of my youngest's preschool teacher. Can I finish it by Thursday, his last day of school? Probably not, but I'll try.

Mrs. Harrison - WIP 1

I'm not sure I like where this one is going. I think I'm fussing with it too much. Part of the problem is I have a low quality reference photo to work with. In any case, I think I'm done with Mrs. Harrison's face. I'll start on her hair next.

Mrs. Gleaves - WIP 1

Wow, it's been a long time since I actually sat down to draw something other than the things I do for my sons. After having taken my first drawing class, you'd think I'd be doing more of this!

Here's the first of a set that I'm working on - one for each of my sons' teachers. I decided to start with Aidan's teacher, Mrs. Gleaves, only because hers is the best photo to work with. I'm pretty much done with her face, and I'll be starting her hair next. I wasn't very happy with this to begin with, but it's growing on me. Once I added her eyelashes, it seemed to start actually looking like her. Anyway, I plan on finishing these before the end of the school year, so I can give them to my sons' teachers to thank them for all their hard work. Wish me luck.

Helena - WIP 1

I wasn't intending to do this as my next drawing, but I saw a picture of my neighbor's daughter and thought it was adorable. I especially liked the innocent look and the lighting of it. I hope I can do it justice. This will be another surprise, since they don't know I'm doing it. I'm pretty much done with the face, but I may do some touch-ups. Next will be the hair...

John - WIP 1

I decided for my next portrait to do my brother-in-law, who passed away a year ago. My sister-in-law has always been one of the first to see my drawings, and she has been very kind in her compliments, so I know this will mean a lot to her. I just hope there aren't too many tears when she sees it. I don't really like doing a portrait where the subject is looking directly at the viewer, but I only had so many photos to work with, and I want this to be a surprise. Unfortunately, I have a pretty low quality photo to work with.

Mary - WIP 2

I've finished Mary's face and now it's on to her hair. I've been able to avoid doing hair with my last two portraits, since Aidan and Cole were both wearing hats. We'll see how it goes.

Cole - WIP 1

It's hard to believe, but it took me four months to get around to starting my next portrait of my son Cole. After I took a break, it was hard for me to get started again - like had happened before, I lost my confidence and dragged my feet. After I started, though, I felt like I could do him justice. We'll see how it turns out.

Aidan - WIP 1

After I finished Grant's portrait, I felt very proud - I had never been so proud of one of my drawings before. I spent many hours on it, and took my time, applying lessons I'd learned from books and from my friends at the ArtPapa forums. I already had a photo of Aidan picked out that I wanted to use for the next one, but after a while, I realized I was dragging my feet about it. One day it occured to me that what was preventing me from working on another portrait was a fear of failure. I was afraid that I couldn't do as well (not to mention better) on another portrait as I'd done on Grant's. I don't expect my skills to improve markedly from one drawing to the next, but I do expect to learn from my mistakes, if nothing else. Still, weeks went by and I couldn't bring myself to start Aidan's portrait until one day I forced myself to.

I'm using a new paper, Arches 140 lb. Hot Pressed Watercolor, and graphite.

Grant WIP 1

I'm taking a little break from eye studies - I literally have 20 or so sources for my studies, and it's become a little overwhelming (and repetitive). After studying Vanderpoel, it's all downhill from there anyway.

Having recently read J.D. Hillberry's "Drawing Realistic Textures in Pencil" and Lee Hammond's "How to Draw Lifelike Portraits from Photographs", I decided to try just that - drawing a portrait from a photograph. I chose my youngest son, Grant, whose 18 month portaits were taken just a couple of months ago. I liked the expression on his face in this one, and thought it would make a good model for my first serious portrait attempt. I've spent a few lunch hours and an evening on it so far, and have used mostly F, 2B and 3B graphite with just a little charcoal for the eyes and some accents. I think overall it's pretty good, but I may need to lighten it up a bit. I'm worried about the hair, because I haven't really had much experience doing realistic hair. We'll see how it goes.