Portraits can be about the hardest thing for an artist to do - you can be technically correct without ever capturing the spirit of your subject, and vice versa. It has taken me years to perfect this - and I have no illusions that it is actually 'perfected', but I have improved immensely and am satisfied with what I see. Here are a few of my favorites - some were commissions, and some were personal projects.
The one thing about doing pencil portraits is that alot of the times, its really hard to capture the subtlety of shade which is perfect for a piece when scanning it to a computer. Just means I have to work 'darker'.
Almost all pieces here are done with black and white pencil - one piece (umbrella) is colored pencil, and the little girl is done in Oil Pastel. The umbrella piece was done in 2003, the little girl with the hat was done in 2006, almost all the rest were done in 2009. The the first pic on the page was done this sping, 2009, of my daughter. The newest additions, the four right underneath it, were done with a new technique during Thanksgiving vacation, 2009. And just for fun, there is a copy of my own self portrait done in 1998 to the right of all this text.
