First Portrait - Help Wanted

Well I need some help. I am taking a portrait class, Faces in Technicolor by Sharon Tomlinson. Her blog describing the class is All Norah's Art . This is my very first portrait and I am not really ready for them but I wanted to learn how she adds all the colors to them.

So where I need help is with my drawing. I have pointed out what is wrong with the pictures many of you were asking for help on and I am now asking for help myself. I know the mouth needs a little change which I saw when I was uploading the pics but beyond that, what do I need to do to make this look like my grandson? Your advice is most welcome and needed.

Blind (or almost) Contour Drawing

I got the new Carla Sonheim book Drawing Lab for Mixed-media Artists and have done a little bit with it. My cats came out terrible so I am not sharing them. They were just practice really anyhow. Then I saw a lesson on blind contour drawing which is not new to me but I thought I'd give it a try. I didn't want to go find a picture of a giraffe just yet or any other exotic animal so I settled for the dog asleep near me.

I have to admit I looked a few times so I guess this is technically a modified contour drawing. What I like about this kind of drawing is my speed goes way up over trying to do a careful drawing yet I still captured her likeness. When I was done I had a dog in the center of an otherwise empty page so I turned it into a journal page. This was drawn in an Aquabee 9x12 inch sketchbook where my usual journals are either a moleskine purple band or handmade to about that size. I don't normally draw as big as I did on this page. Watercolor added when I decided to make a journal page out of it. The whole page took less than 20 minutes!

Cherry Time

I was inspired by some cherries painted by another blogger at Maoma3 blogwho posted about her cherries and included the nicest little cherry painting on her journal page. I am always wondering what to draw and I just happened to have some cherries too. So, I put them in a little bowl, drew them with a Pitt pen and then decided to use colored pencils to color in the picture as my paper wasn't really suitable for anything wet. I'm happy with the way my page turned out. Hope you are enjoying cherry season too.

C is for Color

I got the new book The Journal Junkies Workshop. Using a few of their ideas I made this page. I've previously done a page for the letter A and have started (barely) one for B so I decided to do C here.

I used watered down acrylic for the watercolor looking background hoping it would somewhat seal the page. This is done on drawing paper and the paint was watery enough to soak the paper and bleed through to the other side almost ruining my page there. Adding watercolor pencil lines, I had to rewet the paper to blue them out. Then I let it dry and stuck with drier stuff like a photo I took of a flower in my daughter's yard and some butterflies from gift wrap. A little inkwork and I called it done at least for now.

I think my next journal will only have watercolor paper in it. I like painting on the 140# but it's so thick you can't get so many pages in a single journal. Could any of you tell me how 90# paper works for doing wet backgrounds concerning bleedthrough to the other side? I don't mind buckling as it flattens some when the book is pressed close.

Organic Fruit

I finally drew the fruit my son sent me for Mother's Day. I had a little oops moment. Perfection just seems to shout out against me, lol. The rest of it came out okay and I now have a record of the fruit besides a photo. I used Caran 'd Ache crayons for the color and Pitt pens for the ink.

Imaginary Trip to England

It's been another fun trip with Laure Ferlita. This time we went to England and what a comprehensive trip we had! We went to some pubs of which I painted my favorite. We went to a national park in Wales called Snowdonia. Touring some interesting neighborhoods was part of our trip as you can see by the house and castle doors I've painted. Seeing some historical stuff like a ruined abbey and Stonehenge were even part of the trip as going to the palace and seeing the changing of the guards.

Exciting and I learned so much about sketching with watercolor. I encourage anyone who has wanted to try watercolors but has been too afraid to hop onto one of her trips and have fun while learning. She is starting up a couple of general (no trip this time) classes in watercolor journaling also so click on that Imaginary Trips logo button on the right and join us.

Fake Journal - Page Seven

I know Fake Journal Month is gone (and I only did six pages for it) but I've decided to keep it going and when I see or think of something fake I will add it to my collection. This drawing shows something so very fake it is hideous.

Now mind you, I am not slamming all TV dinners. I love the Marie Callender meals and both are made by Con Agra but some like this Bangquet are simply trash. Reading the ingredients the chicken patties are made of chicken, soy and lots of other stuff. I don't mind soy. I eat it in my Jack-in-the-Box tacos I think but here it does not taste good and if you look at what you get nutritionally you'll find it quite dismal. Many of the calories come from fat. By the way, the veggies they show on the cover are MORE than what I found in the dinner. I tasted it and threw it away. Really. Marie Callender dinners have lots of real potatoes/rice and vegetables with a small amount of real meat. They are very different items and I was shocked to see they were both made by the same company. Worse, I go to the store and see some old men (they are older than me so they are OLD) buying huge stacks of the Banquet dinners when they go on sale. Can't beat 88 cents can you? Well maybe if you want some food....

This time I used a dark brown Pitt pen and watercolors to paint in my drawing. I didn't think the watercolor would work so well on the inked background but it turned out fine.

Now if you would like to start journaling especially in watercolor and want to not be overwhelmed then try this class I posted about here.