The challenge of capturing children

Finding simple things to do in these days of staying at home a lot. Drawing and painting has been my #1 go-to, since it’s easily done within your home with just a minimum of space. “Simple” may not be an accurate description, maybe “elemental” is more like it. It feels direct, and the outcome is entirely up to you.

A few months ago, I participated in 30faces30days from sktchy art school. One day we were presented with the face of a baby—a difficult subject! You might think it would be easy, but to keep the lines brief and accurate, to show the sweetness is very difficult, at least for me. “There is no growth without pain” they say; this was pretty tolerable in the pain department, though hopefully enough to learn something.

I got through that one, and it inspired me to try some in oil paint as well.

Above is the baby’s face from sktchy. So droll, the old man look for sure.

A baby with fun hair, this one in oils.

face 52 the Scotsman

While painting by the River Tweed with some friends last fall, which seems 3 decades ago, a fisherman kindly lent us a couple of chairs so we wouldn’t have to sit on the ground. He said he had been fishing in that spot for 40 years or so.

Scots fisherman

face 51

I think this is as far as I will go with this one, as there is a flaw in the paper. Why is it so hard to photograph white paper? I could increase the contrast in a photo-editing program, but then all the grays would be lost, so that doesn’t seem like a good solution.

the eyes have it

still counting? face 50

a carpenter from Elk, California who has worked on boat projects as well. The right paper helps! This portrait was easier to work on than the last one. I was wanting to try lots of detail in the hair, but set the drawing up too small for that.

a graphite portrait

When was the last time I picked up a pencil to draw with??—it might have been about 4 years ago. I’ve been wanting to return to working on the faces project and drawing with graphite just feels fun. My original goal was 500 faces, just because it sounded neat, but is that even possible at this slow pace? Doubtful. This felt difficult, I was not happy with the blending of tones — maybe it was the paper or the pencils, or just how much time had passed. Here is a portrait of a woman I admire.

portrait in pencil

A portrait of a friend’s grandbaby, anonymized to protect the innocent! I still love graphite as a main medium. It’s so malleable that shading is pure fun. Of course, it comes along with it’s smudging capabilities which end up in unwanted places — nothing a coat of paint can’t fix! This will go into the upcoming Pro Arts East Bay Open Studio, June 6&7, and 13&14. http://www.proartsgallery.org/ebos/

The T has a blank in the middle — what should it say?

Baby Armadillo

face 49 • an ancestor

I drew this from a photo in my mother’s photo album. He was my maternal great-grandfather, here, as a young man in the military, returned from what were called then “the Indian Wars”. Eventually he was a Colonel, but this may have been before that. His promotion papers were signed by Roosevelt.

He looked a gentle man… 

face 47 • Sharpei

These dogs have such wonderful wrinkles, luscious almost, like a rose in furry form. Since my sketching group has a side project of filling a small drawing book with animals, I thought I’d try a Sharpei. This is not a live sketch since I don’t know any actual Sharpei, so I drew this from a photo. I don’t know if it’s the paper, but the pencils seemed especially unwieldy tonight, and the difference between the 4H and the 2H was more dramatic than usual. Maybe it’s because of the moisture (it’s raining) in the air.

face • 46 Marty Feldman

“I am too old to die young, and too young to grow up.” — He said this a week before he died. I thought he was a great complement to Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein, a fun movie.  This was made using 5 pencils, here’s the progression: http://youtu.be/g5JvmYP4kec

Read more about Marty Feldman here http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001204/bio

Marty Feldman, actor

face: 45

The medium was way too small for such a challenging face, at 5×7 inches, and the actual sketch ended up 3.5 x 4 inches. I’d better keep my pencils sharp next time! Buffy Sainte-Marie, probably in the last 7 years…