Thursday 25 February 2010

25/02: BROTHER & SISTER IN COLOURED PENCIL

Its STILL raining here in Whitstable!!!

I'm not being very productive - I think I've finished the graphite wedding anniversary portrait but am leaving it on the easel for a couple of days so I can think about it some more.

I started a picture today that I've been thinking about for some time for entry into the UKCPS exhibition later this year ... but i'm not very happy with progress so it may be scrapped. Could be I'll wake up tomorrow in a more positive frame of mind and turn it around :o) watch this space.

Anyway, this is the portrait I was working on last week. Two beautiful children drawn as a surprise 40th birthday present for their Mum:






16 comments:

  1. Wow, this is beautiful coloured pencil work - how did you get the skin tones so smooth?

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  2. Hi Laura.
    Have you seen this guy's work?
    http://www.howarddavidjohnson.com/pencil2.htm
    I've tried to follow his guidelines for my last couple of child portraits - lots of smoothing and blotting etc to 'stain' the paper rather than building up layers. Takes forever but for children's complexions seems to work well for me.

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  3. Very beautiful Sue, I love the rich colour you have in the children's hair, I bet their Mum was absolutely thrilled, they look wonderful.
    I have always shied away from human portraits, skin tones terrify me, so perhaps I will pop across and have a look at the link.

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  4. Thank you Steph and Bev. I much prefer drawing furry four legged 'people'. Ordinarily I don't draw people portraits in colour (just graphite) but the ref was a good one and I didn't have to work from separate photos which can cause problems with variance in tones.

    I hope you find the link useful Bev - I did :o)

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  5. This is fabulous, Sue! The skin tones are so beautiful, the guidelines from the Howard David Johnson website are really working for you! I've seen his website before but have no stirrings to do human portraits!

    Just a really beautiful job on this!

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  6. Thanks very much Jan :o)

    I admire Howard D Johnson's work but don't have his patience - I've tried to follow his guidelines for skintones in my own fashion but can't evisage ever wanting to do some of those intricate backgrounds - phew!!

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  7. I am speechless Sue. This is a gorgeous portrait. Congratulations on a superb job.

    I will go and check out Howard D Johnson's site.
    Thank you for sharing this with us .

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  8. Thank you Dors. His site is pretty big (and excuse the irritating background music) so this is probably a better link
    http://www.howarddavidjohnson.com/pencil.htm

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  9. Lovely work Sue, good saturation of colour you should do some more portraits in CP. I'm sure your client will be delighted. Must have a look at the website you recommend.

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  10. Thanks Pauline, its certainly a different way of working with CPs - sadly, I've not heard back from the client. He loved the portrait but I was hoping I might get feedback once he'd presented it to his wife .... but zilch!! onwards and upwards though, doesn't do to dwell!!

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  11. Absolutely stunning portrait Sue X

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  12. fantastic portrait...
    the skin tone, eyes, hair...
    in this way i have to describe every part of the painting...
    i can say one thing...
    i was drawn to the picture by the originality of their hair...

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  13. Thank you for commenting.

    You live in a beautiful part of the World and I can see its a great source of inspiration for Sethu (and Appu of course).

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  14. You did a really good job on these. I looked thru his website but not sure I have the patience to do like he does.

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  15. Thank you Jeanne ... I totally agree, the man's a model of patience I think!!

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