Going Back in Time

 

Progress is steady on my latest portrait, but oh, sooooo slow!

So, here are some of my early graphite pictures to show where I have come from. The one above is a favourite of mine. It was drawn, in short bursts of activity, when my eldest child was just a couple of months old - she's now 20. so it's a pretty old picture! I was only dabbling in colour, in those days.

Marilyn Monroe was drawn, at the same time. I think she looks beautiful, but vulnerable.

Finally, it's Scarlett and Rhett. In this one, I tried to show that 'less is more.' There's minimal shading, partly to give a stylised Hollywood-type of look, rather than a photographic effect, and partly to keep the picture very simple and clean-looking. That was my thinking - I wonder if it worked...

And, here we are, today. The end is becoming apparent, at last! This is the longest that I have ever worked on a colour pencil portrait and I must admit to feeling bogged down and bored with it, at times - though, never when I am actually at my drawing table. I always go into my own kind of utopia when I am in the process of drawing or painting. 

I am starting, now, to see where I need to deepen the shadows. The baby's face, in particular, looks very odd, through a lack of shadowed contrasts. Despite feelings of impatience with this portrait, I never feel like giving up. A lot of work has gone into it, so far, and it would take an irretrievable mistake to tempt me into abandoning it before it was finished to an agreeable standard of completion. So, here I go, chugging along, again...