Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Portrait #6 the older boy

I admit it. I hate to say it but...I used my carbon paper for part (but not all) of this initial drawing. The last one turned out great without any help,and I know I didn't need it. But I remembered how annoying the last tilted head was (portrait #2) and I didn't want to deal with that again. Plus, I was trying to finish before we went to the reunion. Unfortunately, my lost pink pencil didn't help with that goal. So this wasn't completely done until I came home and bought a new pencil. So here it is:



Compared to the other drawings, his head seems freakishly small to me in relation to the paper, but actually its probably the size I should have done all of them. Yes, its another blue-eyed kid (and there will be more, I'm certain):




I knew a blue background would look great with his eyes, but frankly I'm getting tired of doing these last few the same. So I tried something different and went with a light gray. But when I started adding the color to his face and shirt, they seemed way to bright with the gray...does he look like Pee Wee Herman to anyone else at this point?




His shirt was definitely going to be a lot of work, but if I got it right it would make the portrait look nice. He also had freckles so I used more warm yellows across his nose (he is the brother to #5 and #3). I started experimenting with the background, and here I added some warmer darker grey to see if it would help:



The shirt is turning out well, so far. The warm grey helped the background a little, but it still doesn't look great. I tried adding green and purple behind him just for fun. It turned out interesting, but still not the best. His face was really coming together well here, but was taking a lot of time because I was trying to simulate pink with my red and peach colors:




The rest of this was finished after I came home. I regret that I wasn't as meticulous with the rest of his shirt, and its a little distracting. I added the pink to his flesh tones as well as drawing in his freckles and a few more details. In the end, I gave in and added the blue to the background. I like it because the underlying colors give it more depth, so its not exactly the same as the other blue portraits. For the most part, it turned out well:


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well done! I was very impressed with how well the teeth turned out. In one picture it was barely there and the next it looked fantastic!

Cardine said...

You are amazing. Simply amazing.

Mellissa said...

Honestly, you could do a post like this all the time, and I would never get bored. All your portraits look great to me.

Anonymous said...

Cardine basically said what I was intending on writing here... You are amazingly talented. I am blown away every time I see one of these.

Kara said...

I am also always impressed! I think the shirt turned out well. I was trying to figure out what was distracting about it. :) I like the different background too.

tearese said...

thanks guys. If you really want to be impressed, go to google images and type in 'portraits'...then you will see why I keep saying I'm not a portrait artist! But I appreciate the support.

Rhea said...

I love watching the step-by-step process. It's so cool to watch the color creep in. Great job!

julie said...

Wow, it looks really good! Those people are really getting their money's worth. Seriously, well done.

I hope we'll get to see you and hang out with you a bit this weekend!