December 2017

It's been a long year. We moved from California to Oregon in August, so there was so much to do this year to prepare for the long move, van, new job, etc. So much planning, packing, I rarely had time for any art. Since the move there are a few new items. Hope you like them. The first abstract watercolor (11x15") is 'Fish'n'Chicks', the next are three of my Chanel watercolors and the last one is an acrylic painting with ink & trim of the Eiffel Tower (Tower is Tour in French), about 8x10" stretched cotton canvas.

March 2017

Final shot, maybe I'll work more on it later. Kinda ridiculous someone made a comment about how I should get a mat and a bigger frame before they commented on the work (I had shown it in a frame with no mat that I had laying around). Funny, when you don't ask for advice and there are rules not to give if not asked.

More graphite work. My role as artist sometimes takes on a teacher role. As I learn more about pencils, graphite and carbon, the more I like to share. I have been working on a sketch of Dame Helen Mirren using her character of Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect.

After blocking in the facial features and the tones I needed, I will start refining the features and hair. I usually work all over the subject rather than in parts as I go and it works out better for me that way. At first I did grid work in an effort to be more photo realistic, but I found that I actually would make mistakes that way, go figure, right? So back to the old way for me.

December 2016 - January 2017

Back to graphite for a while. Two commissions in the near future, all from photograph. I'm so looking forward to it because doing it for money means I have to do my very best work. Which has the side-effect of making my work better.

We're done with the Chanel decor for the moment and changing the accent colors in my studio. Just the necessities here.

To take up some spare time, meantime, doing some graphite drawings per request. I noticed when you've not done anything for weeks, getting back into it is a little frustrating (at least for me). So, something easy like Daenerys from Game of Thrones and all her blond locks. Easy, right? I think it will be completed in three phases. The first or what I like to call, the blocking out phase, working out the kinks in the placement of everything. So here is phase one:

For phase one, blocking in with Cretacolor Monolith pencil in 4B, as well as a mechanical pencil with AinStein 4B lead. A really light very hard pencil, 6H for the delicate first layer of skin. Time with this is about 1.5 hours. The paper is 11x14" Fabriano Studio 90# hot press watercolor paper. No blending at this point. 

Phase two: More detailed and darkening as well as a little blending. Working on the final phase(s). 

PHASE TWO

FINAL