Primary colors

Inspired by various online painting challenges where you paint a subject using only primary colors (and black and white) ... here's a small (about 5x7) lunch-time doodle. After recently watching this clip from the Leno show (it's a hoot! http://www.lolbucket.com/video/KN5K8Y4S1AMA/100-year-old-Idaho-woman-on-Jay-Leno-show ), I wanted to capture Dorothy in her younger years - Jay briefly shows a photo in the video. I can see I really need to pay attention to the placement of the eye closest to the viewer - it seems a little bit high and too far outside, again!

Girl in the grass

I took some photos along the way on this one. Only took a few days to complete, working on it now and then whenever I found time.

My tiny reference photo.

Yes, I really do only have the set of pastels in the above image, plus a small handful of single flesh-tones. 

Had to darken her hair a bunch more. This is just an old frame I had laying around, it's getting a better one.

What I learned: to tape off the edges, so I don't work all the way to the edge. I worked all the way to the edge of the paper on this one and it was difficult to mat and frame. And that I'm not real good at photographing my work yet either.

Pets need portraits, too

A quick little pastel drawing of my two cats. Popa is dark and sleek. DC is light and fluffy.

A beginning

I've decided to use this blog to document portraits that I do. I did a few in 1993 using acrylic paints, during a class I took in Indianapolis. Well, then I got pregnant, and you mothers out there know what that means, hobbies like this go on the back burner.

A couple years ago I took a pastel workshop at the Villages Folk School and I hoped to get back into creating at least once in a while. But still too active with the kid's schedule. Now that he's almost done with high school and doing his own thing most of the time, I decided I would try to make some time to do it again. My first go is Lia...

I'm generally pleased with it. Her right eye is maybe a little too far from her nose. The hair was very difficult for me. I actually did her face first, then put it away for about a month because her beautiful curls scared me.

I realized I could maybe get some good advice about painting pastel portraits from books and scoured my local library with scant results. While ordering some holiday gifts I did a little shopping of my own and bought a used copy of John Singer's "How to Paint Portraits in Pastel".