Spring feels like it's here today! Wow the warmth and sunshine are so intoxicating! But I wanted to take time from outside and be sure to post my most recent happenings :) . So I'm still working on my Hibiscus but it's coming closer to completion. It's true what they say good things come to those who wait. Well it'll be a little longer...as I sound like a broken record, or do kids theses day say CD's that skip, any rate, it's oil and it takes longer....but here is the most recent update:


And as I said I've been working on my daughter's portraits. Here is my youngest. Funny comment about this one. When I showed her it she said "Wow, it looks like me. I like my hair." Then her sisters commented on how "that's not Niki, her hair never looks that neat." Ah, sisters.
Here is the sketch.



I saw some issues with it once I got the sketch done that I wasn't happy with so I pulled out my artistic license and changed things around. The first being her hair. She doesn't always put it up so I preferred to keep it down. The other is that the lines on the face weren't spot on. So I switched those around. Next I created a the watercolor painting.



I've started on my eldest daughter. That will be my next to post. The plan is that their portraits interact with each other on the wall. Individual portraits but also one when all together. They are beautiful girls and they generally get a long well. I say generally as they girls and sisters and 2 are teenagers.

Portraits

Well here is Sabrina's portrait. I started out with a detailed drawing, expect for the hair. In real life she's got beautiful hair not "crazy witch hair" as I've been told I drew. Well what really happened is she was tired of seeing her face without hair. So I spent oh, a good, 30 seconds throwing some hair on the bald goddess. And it shows :). My real goal was not to have a finished graphite drawing but something I could paint from.

I choose to do watercolors on this portrait. I enjoy watercolors. I haven't worked with them for a while but it hasn't slowed me down. I like the fact that you can blend colors easily without the wait for the drying time. Another favorite medium I like to use are pastels. I enjoy them for pet portraits.

Here's the finished version of Sabrina's watercolor portrait.



Next I'm working on Nichole's portrait. She's been drawn up but I'm not exactly happy with her eyes...yet. Or I'd show you the finished drawing. I was going to start painting her portrait in watercolor the other night when I looked at the paper and thought, wow this looks like hot pressed but It's off a block of cold pressed 300lbs. of Arches. That's high quality stuff, what's going on here. Duh....it was the back board oops. As I live far away from an art store it was off to the www to get an order for paper in. Well now I'm waiting for my Blick order to show up so I guess you'll get to wait too.

After I finish with the Nichole portrait I'm going to do one of Cassie. Then I'll have a complete individual portrait of all three of my daughters. I'm composing them individually but so they can interact, or look like they are interacting on my wall. Then when they are all grown up they can take their portraits with them.