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...

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 2

Well, Cole now has a mouth and chin. His face is almost finished. I didn't get as much time to work on this during lunch hours as I would've liked this week, but at least I'm still going on it! If you notice anything unusual about his teeth, that's not an error. One of his front teeth broke in half when he fell on it when he was two. I think that was a bonus when I picked out this photo to draw, because it shows off his teeth in a subtle way. I hope to get his ear, neck, and hair done next week.

Aidan - WIP 4

I've finally finished Aidan's hat and face. I originally wanted to place the part of the bird bath that's blocking his mouth further to the right and then reconstruct his mouth, but after thinking about it and looking for other reference photos, I decided against it. I think I made the right decision, because I probably would have made him look like the Joker if I'd tried to guess what the obscured part of his mouth looked like.

Grant - WIP 2

I spent a little more time on Grant, giving him ears and a mouth. I've also done his neck, but haven't scanned that part yet. I'm frankly nervous about doing his hair - I'm very pleased with how it looks so far, and I don't have any experience really trying to do realistic hair.