January - February 2015

My New Year's Resolution, to do more drawings and portraits. 

The first image is Nadia, my great granddaughter, almost 6 months old. A graphite drawing on Fabriano hot press watercolor paper using Staedtler Mars Lumograph pencils. Hailey Gardner and Amanda Gardner, family cousins and nieces, were also taken from this photo.

Nadia, Amanda, Hailey and Eva

I worked Eva from another photo that I liked better.

One of the drawbacks to working from a photo is sometimes you get one that's not clear and distinct. So, I took a different approach than I usually do. Normally I work up to a photorealistic image, but this time I decided to leave it loose and spontaneous. I used the hot press watercolor paper rather than bristol or regular drawing paper because its so smooth and works great for drawing portraits.