Magnolia Blossom acrylic portrait magnolia flowers

 

Cherub
11"x14"
Pastel on Stonehenge

Week 4 30 paintings in 30 days Challenge
                        Spirit of Africa - Elephants - Acrylic/India Ink
                     Spirit of Africa - Elephant Morn - Acrylic/India Ink
                      Spirit of Africa - Orangutan - Acrylic/India Ink
                                 Izabella - Graphite/color Pencil
                                            Submerged - Pastel
                                Leopard - Colored Pencil/Pastel
                                               Cherub -  Pastel
Here are this week's challenge pieces.  Only 4 more days and I am ready to step back, still paint each day but without the pressure of trying to finish something.  As you can see this week I took advantage of additional traffic to get some feedback on some previously finished pieces. 

When I saw this little boy, first thought was this there was such a thing as cherubs, he was one.  He was was shyly standing with his grandmother and he was just beautiful. He posed so sweetly, at least I thought that until I started drawing this pose, making the cheek/neck differentiation was the big challenge here. At the end of December this was the first piece that I was working on after organizing my pastels by value, so I was working hot and heavy on this portrait, but stopped it once I started the challenge (Ah, yeah, I had my hands full just doing the challenge). So each day he has patiently hung on my board watching and waiting to get finished. I had about 60% done, the eyes, nose and mouth and top hair, so yesterday said it was time and got him completed. I am relieved to say that I was able to get back into the flow and I thankfully had saved all the colors on a tray. One benefit of this challenge for me is more confidence.

This was an experiment for me, as 1) initially he was quite pale, he has that very light porcelain complexion, but I felt he was colorless. So I got bolder and added more color, especially on the shadow side (appears more so in real life) and he suddenly felt like he could talk to me. Study and get better at value differentiation was a piece of advice that Canadian artist, Lela Stankovic, gave me on improving my work. She coordinates a monthly challenge at http://paintanddrawtogether.blogspot.com/ 2) Tried the Stonehenge paper which I had been told was great for color pencil, but appears sturdy and has lots of tooth - hmmm sounds good for pastel and 3) most important was trying to see if I could use my own reference picture (I am definitely am not the best photographer) to complete an informal portrait. Beginning each Thanksgiving the Washington DC Botanical Garden on the mall has a train exhibit that runs through the holidays. So there are tons of kids of all shapes, sizes, clothing and colors and I got several oks to take pictures of the children. I figured if I could make a decent portrait of each of those kids, next time when asked "why are you asking for a picture" and I reply "I am an artist", I can hand them a card with confidence that I could deliver a portrait. I figured if they followed along the painting process with no pressure I might sell a couple of portraits.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great painting week.