A portrait of my baby niece made as a gift for my sister. She and Cate are already friends even though they are so different in personality. Lizzie has the most dainty whimper of a cry but Cate has a powerful set of lungs and doesn’t hesitate to use them!
I posted work in progress shots of this drawing in my last issue of Delicate Paperwork. If you are interested in seeing more behind the scenes images from me, you should subscribe. I’m sending the February issue out on Wednesday where I’ll be showing you a sneak peak of what I’m working on for the upcoming Twitter Art Exhibit.
My girl is two months old. I’m looking forward to getting to know Cate better over the upcoming year. I hope all my readers also have a year full of blessings.
Baby Cate arrived last week and I’m finally getting into the swing of things enough to make some sketches while she naps. I am no expert on baby portraits, but I will definitely get a lot of practice over the next few months as I’ll want to do plenty of sketches of my precious baby girl. I am so lucky!
This drawing is based on a photo where Katie is standing on the bow of the boat looking over the lake. It would make a really nice portrait done in colored pencil if I can convince myself to get started on it!
I started this portrait back in September, but I put it on the shelf and didn’t work on it for months. Finally, I decided to finish it off so I could move onto other things with a clear conscience. I did remember to scan it at different stages of completion (see below). The baseball cap was my favorite thing to draw as I loved the strong contrast. My intention was for this to have a more sketchy look, but I ended up adding more detail than I had originally intended. Even so, I am happy with it, and it bears an excellent resemblance.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. I’ll most likely be offline until Friday as I’ll be busy with Thanksgiving prep, although I’ll still be making drawings to show you when I get back. This year, I am most thankful for my family, and that I won’t have to go anywhere near a TSA agent to be able to see them.
Last night I made another drawing of a baby for practice. I originally wanted it only to be a quick sketch but ended up spending much more time on it than I intended, probably because I almost never draw babies and I’m out of practice. Also, I actually know this baby in person and I wanted to capture her likeness (it’s pretty good but not perfect). I’m sort of sick of portraits after this one though so I think I will try to do some other types of drawings today.
A far as the Art Every Day Challenge is going, I have been faithful to the challenge by doing artwork every day, although I’ve had some disappointing results for some of my drawings. Even so, I am pleased with myself because I’ve done more work than usual and also have more good work as well. In that same line of thought, I decided to join NaNoDrawMo, which is a flickr group based on NaNoWriMo with the idea of making fifty drawings (or paintings) in November. I’m honestly not sure if I will be able to meet that challenge, but I know that I will be more prolific, which is my ultimate goal.
I also thought I’d share some blogs that are new to my RSS reader in the past couple of weeks:
Anna Emilia (a Finnish illustrator, very ethereal stuff)
In the background, I was listening to the Escape from Illustration Island Podcast. The podcast is geared towards freelance illustrators and I’m not quite used to all the lingo they use, but I have gotten a lot out of the discussions. Some of my favorite artists are/were also illustrators.
Sometimes I prefer listening to podcasts over music in my studio. It feels a little less lonely to hear the conversations go back and forth (and I can only stand so much NPR). I especially liked the latest podcast with Stephanie Levy. I knew she was an American living in Germany, but for some reason I always thought of her as having more of a Chicago, not a Tennessee accent.
Some time ago I wrote that I was working on a “secret drawing” and that I was scanning it in as I worked. It has taken me longer than I had anticipated because of all the other things I have going on right now. I then lost the will to keep it a secret so I showed it to the person that I meant it for as a gift. I knew he was going to like it either way though. This is the first scan, representing about two hours of work on and off. I have temporarily stopped working on it, but will resume as soon as I get set up in my new studio.
This was a fun drawing I made of NCMallory for Julia Kay’s Portrait Party. It was a relaxing portrait that I drew after work one day when I had the house to myself. I highly recommend his photostream as he is very talented and an all-around interesting guy. You can see all the artists’ interpretations of him here. He is very prolific and active in the group, so I’m sure he will draw you if you join up.
