Tag: photos

Portrait of a Little Girl

Over the last year or two I have been doing pencil drawing with an amazing instructor, Steve Tanaka. He used to teach at our local adult school, but with the pandemic and virtual classes, he decided to try out meeting in the park behind our local library. A small group of us meet at a moment’s notice – well, a week or two’s notice! – on Wednesday morning, weather permitting. The primary purpose of the class is portraiture in pencil, but I have wandered at times to cat faces and trees, others have done horses or owls, but we draw. The doing is the point, and Steve’s tutelage is subtle, available, encouraging. He has a sharp eye and a lot of experience. He is a fine teacher.

This is a drawing of a portrait of a poor girl in India by a talented Pixabay photographer Aamir Mohd Khan. His portraits have a drama of a place I have never seen and are both fascinating and touching. His portrait is below.

I cropped the portrait to focus on the little girl whose face is so haunting. I wonder what her life is now – I don’t think it is easy at all.

My own drawing is done with pencil – graphite – using HB, 2H, 2B and 4B pencils on bristol paper, 9×12. There is still some work to be done, but I felt a need to post it. I have spent about 5 hours on it altogether.

Oak Trees – LInes, No Lines

Tired of being indoors, I pulled a bunch of stuff out to the side patio – paints, brushes, water, chrome book, water, palette, head phones, ink, pencil, pen.  I played a bit and mixed up some greens using yellows and blues, and phthalo green.  I don’t like having only phthalo green on my palette, but that is what I had.  I like sap green and Hooker’s.  I also like Payne’s Grey.

Being outdoors means being cramped on a really small table, so everything was jumbled up.  The goal was to just be outdoors and do something.  So, I used some photos of trees I have taken over the years.

The first tree was one I took the other morning when out on a shoot with my friend Tom.  Here is the photo:

And here is my rendering in line and colors:

And then a photo from April 2015:

And the results – no lines, only the intention to paint light and dark, contrast, whatever:

I’ll tell ya, this last painting was painful!  I noticed that most of my colors tend to be pastel – a lot of water, not a lot of paint.  I felt like I was beating up my poor brushes trying to get deep colors with more pigment than water.  Wetting the colors a bit before might help.

In my opinion, neither painting is especially sophisticated or elegant.  I will say that despite its primitive quality, I am pleased with the lineless painting as I did accomplish something.

Does your head feel totally stirred up when you try something alien to your normal ways of doing things?  Mine always does and it takes awhile to return to orbit.