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 2

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

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 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.

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.

Mary - WIP 1

To round out the portraits of my nuclear family, here's one I'm working on of my wife, Mary. I'm going to do my best to finish this by Mother's Day so I can give it to her then. This was tricky because of her glasses, but hopefully I did OK. They could probably still use some touching up.

This is 9x12" Arches HP WC 140 lb paper, and so far, I've only used a 2B mechanical pencil with some F pencil for the skin. I've tried used a stump this time, which I haven't done before, and I rather like it. For the larger skin areas, I'll be using a chamois again.

Cole - WIP 4

I finished the underside of the brim of Cole's hat. What a pain - there are so many folds because of the way it's sewn, but I think it came out pretty well. The top part should be easy after this! Then it's on to finish his neck and do his shirt.

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.

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.

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 5

I haven't gotten as many lunch hours or evenings to work on this as I would like, so it's moving along slowly but surely. I finished the subject of Aidan's interest - a snail that is hanging upside down on part of the bird bath. I've never drawn a snail before, so it was a challenge but fun. I actually picked up a snail the other day while the boys were playing with it and studied its shell to get an idea of how I might draw one. Another challenge with the bird bath was trying to make its texture different - it is aluminum, I think, and somewhat smooth on top but rougher on the sides. I also wanted it to stand out from Aidan's mouth, since it's overlapping. I hope I did OK.

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.

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.

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 5

Well, I decided to stick with the plaid shirt that Grant had on in the photo. After I started, I thought I had ruined the whole drawing, but after completing this part of the shirt, I think that even though the pattern does draw the eye to it, the lines direct the eye up towards the face. My intention is to have the viewer first notice the eyes, then the viewer's gaze will go down to the right, where the lines will lead to the left, and then up to the hair and back to the eyes. Whether this will actually work or not, I don't know. I plan on toning down the lines in the shirt a bit to make it less of a distraction and to set it back from Grant's face.

There's usually at least one point in every drawing when I think I've blown it and ruined the whole thing. In this drawing, that's happened with the hair and again with the shirt. I even resisted working on it for a few days while I thought about what to do with the shirt, looking at it a few times each day.

After the shirt is done, I plan on going back to sharpen up some points in the face and hair a tiny bit to give it slightly more focus.