NELVIA'SART.COM

It is going to be close as to whether or not this little guy will be the last 2013 picture.  Worked with him today to get the hair mostly in, still some finishing touches as I see it up on the screen here.  Am thinking of trying the second pose I have of him and change it up with more color, not trying to be traditional and then post to see which one gets the most votes - that might be my first 2014 challenge. Have a Happy and safe New Year 2014.  A toast to you all my friends.

When it has been a while since you have done a portrait, you tend to skip and jump right in, especially if you are excited about the subject.  Guilty.  But, alas, there is a reason that it is taught to measure, drop diagonals, remeasure and check and recheck.  One of my nemesis in portraits is that I tend not always to get all the angles of the eyes, nose and mouth going in the same plane.  So after doing, erasing, repositioning line drawing, and erasing, well you get my drift, I think I have finally got the nose and mouth foreshortened and things back in sync.  If anyone sees something else, please let me know - thankfully pastel is pretty forgiving at this point. The other important thing is to remember you can always reestablish the drawing - when you are blocking in color many times your guideline drawing gets colored over, you can either erase to your original lines or better to restablish with either very light pencil line or maybe a different colo...

Dipping my feet back in the pastel pool with this one.  When last in DC I took the opportunity to take some reference pictures of some of the cutest kids.  This little boy being one of the cutest - reminded me of a cherub, oh that curly hair!!  Got two nice shots of him - he just posed for me and then smiled shyly while hanging by his grandmother.  Goals here are keeping the complexion light and working the blonde hair.  To me this is a funny shot as while I am looking down at him, he is looking up so I expect a big foreshortening challenge on the cheeks, nose and mouth because it appears kind of flat to me in the ref pic  - Hilda, might be coming to you asking for some advice here.  Both those areas can be problematic for me.  But I just had to paint him, so .... he may be my first finished piece of the new year, or if he really wants to come out, be the last piece of the year - who knows. Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and...

  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Wishing you all the happiest holiday season.  Hoping this puts a little bling in your New Year.  Thanks to all for stopping by and offering encouragement over this past year.  Your work, your comments and most of all your friendship mean so much and inspire me.  The goodness of strangers, who have become friends says there is nothing wrong with the art world that we live in.  Celebrate, Enjoy and stay Safe.

Here are my experiments for this week.  When we were in DC last week we saw an exhibit of silhouette portraits which was a popular art form in the 1700-1800s.  Looking at photos of sunrise or sunset, most cameras make all back lit shadows look solid black.  Thought that would look dramatic against a colorful sky.  Little did I know when I wanted to try to capture the spirit of Africa it would turn out to be so timely with the passing of Nelson Mandela.  I  hope you all saw REnate's portrait of the man, it was really an awesome picture of an unusual human being and someone who changed our world for the better. I have a couple more of these in mind and hope to create a little series.  These are acrylic and ink on 5x7 watercolor paper.  Know there are a couple more coming, antelope with their classic horns, an elephant and monkey at least. thanks for stopping by and hope you are having a great painting week.    

Finally, I am calling the Grand Canyon done - whew!!  Glad that I went through and got it completely finished, did lean a lot.  Know that mere mortals can't capture the grandeur of this wonder of the world.  Am definitely going to try to do another moment from our visit there several years ago and see if I can improve on getting less detailed.  But for the moment need to take a break and pick another theme for a bit. Thanks for stopping by, please leave me a note on what you like, don't like and think could be improved.  We all appreciate learning from each other and only grow by objective input.