Sunbather

So, I did some personal work while I've been waiting for all the people who want portraits to actually give  me a photo. This drawing of Joshua is called "Sunbather" and is 11x14", drawn with Prismacolor pencil on tan paper. It was drawn from a compilation of three or four photos (Two of Josh, others of the curtains.)
 I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but this was a lot more detailed, and time intensive than the basic portraits I've been doing as commissions. I'd say it took about two months to do...of course I don't have time to work on it every day!
I liked the photo because of Josh's expression, and the way the light was shining on him.

I took some progress shots while I was working on it. I love the brightness of the first sleeve! It looks like its glowing.:

I also took a few detail shots to show some of my favorite parts. Like I think the fingers turned out pretty good (click to see a larger version).

 I liked the eyelashes and freckles too! Although this photo was taken before it was completely finished, so the cheeks are darker in the final version. I kinda wish I'd gone back in and darkened the freckles more after the cheeks were finished, so you could notice them more.

It was hard to get the color exactly right in any of these photos, but it's pretty close. Especially because of my camera's issue with blowing out orange sometimes.
So, what do you think?

Josh's 9yr old pictures at Cedar Breaks

We took Josh's birthday pictures at Cedar Breaks while we were visiting Utah. ( We're tired of grass backgrounds, and we had to top the graffiti from last year). I thought the green trees and red rocks would look awesome with Josh's hair. It was also the afternoon, just like when we took Jonah's pictures, but somehow we were able to find lots of good spots for some photos. Maybe it was a little cloudier, and maybe there were more shaded places, but we got an overabundance of photos for Josh!

Of course, part of that high number is because Josh insisted that for every smiling picture, he wanted a "serious" picture. Surprisingly, a lot of the serious pictures looked better than the smiling ones (something to do with less shadows on the face). But because of Josh's big eyes, some of the serious ones looked pretty funny too.

A. The serious ones look better here. Or funnier, depending on your view.



 At first, Josh wasn't smiling very realistically (he was trying too hard), and it was driving me nuts, because they were nice locations. And my visions of red rock landscapes behind Joshua were hard to realize, due to the different settings needed to expose the person as well as the background. These pictures ended up looking almost fake because of how much they needed to be manipulated after the fact.

B. The bottom two are nice but maybe a little strange; the light on the top two is nice.

C The wildflowers were blooming everywhere while we were there, and we didn't want to pass up an opportunity to use them in one or two pictures. See, these 'serious' ones look pretty nice, right?



 
 D There were a lot of leaning-on-tree poses, but they worked pretty good. I wish Josh was smiling in the upper left one, the light is really nice in it.



E.
As the afternoon progressed (we went on the Alpine Loop trail, it was really fun) Josh got better at smiling realistically, and we started to get a few better faces. I love his laugh in the flowers, though the arms on the hips pose is a little silly.


 

F There were  a lot of neat staircases, so we had to get in on that. I think the bottom right might be the best face, though I like the background in the top right.






G We had to try this one in black and white too:


H  We got in a few good smiles near the end. I like the top left maybe.




I And we finished out the day strong. These are all pretty good.



J Oh, and lets not forget our couple of horizontal pictures. They were alright, though the light is bad on the bottom.




What do you think?

.

Joshua and Miyazaki

 I just finished a fun project involving markers, Joshua, and one of my favorite photographs. Yay! I'd been looking for a project that would work well with art markers; I haven't done anything with them since shortly after River was born. I also had been looking for the perfect picture to add to my collection of portraits done in color and graphite, like these two done in previous years:

This new one was a little different in format, and I didn't completely decide to draw Joshua in pencil until the end. I ultimately decided he'd look good in monochrome pencil to contrast with all of the bright colors behind him. This photo has been hanging on my wall for about a year, and I love looking at it every night. My favorite thing about the photo was the way the big blue flower draws your eye, and how the large piece of red/yellow wall paper near the center of the picture contrasts with it. Some of the designs on this drawing ended up looking bolder than they do in the photo, so I don't think it carries the same contrast as the photo, but it has plenty of other things I love about it.
I especially love the unfinished portion of his pants, and wonder if it would have looked good to leave even more unfinished.

I really had fun figuring out how to depict the different kinds of wall paper, especially when I didn't have the exact right colors. For instance, this one on the left involved coloring everything with white, then using a skin color to make that weathered background tone. And the one to the right of it is a gold marker with orange smeared into it.

 Speaking of gold marker, this was the first time I got to use my gold and silver oil paint markers. They came in a set with a white marker I needed for this other project in 2014, and I didn't require them at the time:

Anyway, the gold marker was cool! It really was shiny and metallic when it dried, even though it doesn't show up as well in a reproduction or photo, but you can kind of see it at this angle:

One decision I did make at the last minute, was to color Joshua's hair red. I'm not sure it was the best decision, as it looked good in pencil too. The other two portraits above had a touch of color in the hair, but I left them mostly monochrome. I decided to color it because another thing I love about the photo is the brightness of his red hair going so well with all of the designs behind him. I'm not sure it works as well in the drawing, but what's done is done!
Also, I should mention I used his face from a different photo; in the photo with this background he's just prosaically smiling, but I liked this expression much better.



I think I might call this drawing, "Joshua and Miyazaki", because the t-shirt he's wearing portrays most of Miyazaki's most famous films. This was another thing I waited to decide; I wasn't sure if it might look better with just a plain dark shirt, but ultimately I kept the shirt graphics because they're a big part of what I like about the photo.

The one thing that bothers me a bit is that his hands look awkwardly drawn. Really, they look weird in the photo too because of the odd angle the camera was to his body. I probably should have reshot a picture of his hands for reference. Other than that, I think in the end it turned out pretty good!

colaborative works

In our bag of kid activities for Sacrament meeting, we have four or five notebooks of lined paper, so the kids can draw while they sit and listen. As you know, Elora loves to draw, (and name her characters)

 



and at least at church, the other kids enjoy it too. Joshua has always liked drawing monsters,

 
 

 
 while Jonah is starting to move beyond stick people with big tummies.

  Eli has just recently jumped from scribbles to stick people and monsters too.

One day several months ago, I was looking through the notebook pages trying to find a blank page. When I couldn't find one, I decided to just add to the scribbles already on the page. ( I don't draw at church very often at all these days, and I didn't want to take up a page someone else could use.)
The scribble made some nice hair, no?

Another day, I found some half-finished drawings that Josh or Jonah had done, so I decided to finish one. This was fun!



In fact, I decided Josh wouldn't mind a little embellishment to a few more of his monster drawings. This was the first addition done, drawn quickly and to Joshua's delight.



Of course, then Elora had to try it too. Copycat.



 And one time, I think Josh is the one who sabotaged Elora's drawing, with the monster coming out of the genie lamp. Haha. Elora always makes cool outfits for her characters.

And at some point, Jonah found a pair of pants Elora had drawn without an occupant, so he decided to fill and color them himself. (Green is Jonah's favorite color, and therefore Eli's favorite as well.)

 



Once again, I turned the tables on Joshua's monster: now the guy his creature is attacking has a pet monster on a chain that's even bigger! Mwaahahaha.



Of course, my favorite addition wasn't exactly Joshua's. But he did get a good laugh out if it.

Pinewood Derby stuff

Pinewood Derby time! Last month, our new scout troop got to participate in their first Pinewood Derby! Years ago, there was a pack here, and we were able to obtain their racetrack for the boys to use. We set it up in one of the bee workshops of our friends from church, and we were all set! 

The boys had less than two weeks to make their cars, from the time the derby was announced. This was so we could be done in time to register the winners for the regional competition in Rapid the next month. Joseph and Joshua both had fun making cars. They got a book all with templates and tips, as well as design ideas. Josh's is the green one with a skull, and Joseph's is the racer with the red. They both have cool batman decals.

Joseph was pretty proud of his sleek design

Josh's car turned out great! He did it mostly himself, too.

All the cars for our local competition, including two adult cars to the left.

Good job boys!

Josh didn't end up winning, but he still had a lot of fun. Our two winners, one for the Bears and one for the Wolves, went to Rapid two weeks later, and we went too to support them! The story was featured in the local paper, and Josh even got in a few pictures. Our local boys both won fourth place in their respective categories, pretty good when they were each racing 15-17 boys.  While we were there, we saw that for their "Outlaw Division" even girls could make a car and enter. You can bet Elora is excited about next year!

can you see me? I'm in the back with an orange shirt.