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 - Final

I feel kind of bad, because I had to rush to finish this one. I did the hair over the last couple of days and had to finish it up tonight to give to Mrs. Lewis tomorrow. Even if she likes it, I'll see the parts that could have been done better. Ah well.

Mrs. Gleaves - WIP 3

This is almost done. I think I need to do some fine tuning to add some definition to her cheekbones, and Mary suggested I tone down the dimple under her mouth.

Mrs. Gleaves - WIP 2

More work on Mrs. Gleaves' hair. Man, am I out of practice...

Helena - Final

OK, well, Helena's all finished! I had a hard time with this, because her hair is so fine. I actually stopped it for a long time because I didn't know how I was going to approach it, but gave it a try and I think it came out OK. I finished it yesterday and gave it to her parents, who loved it. Helena's mom said she was going to cry, and they both just kept staring at it, and said they were going to treasure it forever. They're currently expecting, so they asked if I realized I'd have to do her sibling, too. I said I would, as long as he/she was as cute as Helena. I'm glad they liked it.

John - Final

Here is John's finished portrait.

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 3

I worked on Mary's hair this week, and still need to finish the side on the viewer's right. Doing the hair wasn't as bad as I'd feared - I got lucky with the last two portraits, since Aidan and Cole were both doing hats. Once I got into a rhythm, though, Mary's hair was actually fun to do.

Cole - WIP 3

Well, I'm essentially done with Cole's ear and hair. I don't really enjoy drawing hair, and of course, Cole's hair, which is normally straight, was kind of sweaty and matted when I took this picture. I'm pretty happy with the hair, but might do a little more tweaking to it.

Aidan - WIP 3

I finished Aidan's hair, the shading beneath his hat, and most of the hat. Since his hat is a light khaki color, it loses a lot of detail on the left, since the sun is shining on it. I think I'll have to add some background to this drawing to define the edge of the hat.

Aidan - WIP 2

I worked a bit more on Aidan, adding his ear and starting the hair. There isn't much of it in this portait, since he's wearing a hat, just a few locks that typically hang down on his forehead. I'm afraid I may have messed up the tooth of the paper on his forehead to the viewer's left, since I can't seem to add any more graphite to darken it up. I'll keep trying.

Grant - WIP 4

Grant now has a full head of hair. It was tricky, because he's got some long locks that overlap others, and a lot of wave, so I had to be careful and do each lock at a time. I tried to keep the band of light consistent as well as the shading on the sides. Next I'll tackle the plaid shirt he's wearing, another first for me. Wish me luck.

Grant - WIP 3

I finally worked up the nerve to start Grant's hair. This is the first time I've tried to create realistic hair - in the past, I'd do the face and then quickly top it off+ with hair that amounted to scribbles that somewhat followed the direction of hair growth. I'm happier with how this came out so far.