Sketching with Coral

A quick sketch as practice and outlined with a coral pencil to give it some color ! Kinda looks good no ! I honestly don't know what I am doing sometimes.

Graphite Titled Wistful

Graphite on Stonehenge paper

Title: Wistful

For this one I decided to shade in the face as well, as normally I just work on the main features and I think it turned out good. I love doing eyes............so much depth to them.

Portrait in Graphite - Stay With Me

I know exactly what I am doing when I am modelling the main features of the face but when it comes to the hair, I draw a blank. Never know what to do with it. Some portraits I have just left them as a line drawing, here I added shading as an afterthought. Completely clueless............what do you think?

Graphite Portrait: The Glistening

Artwork by Lynda D'Souza
Title: The Glistening
Graphite on Manila Paper

So I showed this to the Prof who gave me a good critique, said Wow and that he liked the stylized rendering. He thought they would look great in a gallery as they had a unified theme and style. Asked me to keep it intuitive and I do................I very much go with my gut and intuition when drawing. 

Portrait Barbara Palvin

Artwork by Lynda D'Souza
Title: Poetic Gaze
Graphite on Manila Paper

There ! its done. Had a bit of fixing to do and calling it done. I could seriously go on tweaking till I've tweaked it to death. I have to force myself to let it go. Guess its the perfectionist in me ! 

"Poetic Gaze" WIP

Artwork by Lynda D'Souza
Title: Poetic Gaze
Graphite on Manila paper

Barbara Palvin is her name. I am in love with her face and absolutely love drawing her. Have tweaked it a bit more after this pic was taken, will post the final one tomorrow. Hope everyone is having a wonderful day today........get outside !! its bright and sunshiny !!

Work In Progress

Its been a journey arriving at the realization that I want to specialize in PORTRAITS. When I was doing my "100 paintings from one painting a day" exercise, I started off with painting still lifes, then moved onto fresh fruit, then tried shoes (coz I had alot of them lying around), then clothes and one day - just out of running out of subject matter I tried drawing a face and had an AHA moment ! With portraits there is no margin for error - you either get it right or wrong. And that is what I like about doing portraits (probably also explains why I don't like doing landscapes).

So ever since I have been doing portraits only. I tried my hand at full body and half body but nothing compares to the pure joy from drawing a close up face.

Here is a piece I am working on currently, its taking longer than my usual sketches simply because I took a two month break and its taking a while to get back into the zone. Will post finished piece shortly.

Daily Sketch "Wandering Thoughts"

I find that you start off with a blank page and then some higher power guides your hand and the result is this. I never go in with a plan but am finding that my work is going in a direction that I like. Think I will stick with this format...........

Artwork by Lynda D'Souza
Title: Wandering Thoughts
Graphite on Manila Paper

daily sketch - glances

Artwork by Lynda D'Souza
Title: Glances
Graphite on Manila Paper

This is an older one done before the Young Queen. The more I do, the better I get.

Daily sketch "The Young Queen"

Artwork by Lynda D'Souza
Title: The Young Queen
Graphite on Manila Paper

I feel she needs a heart shaped mole on her right cheek..............just like a young Victorian Queen would have. Enjoyed rendering the softness of the lips and eyes.

Did I tell you I love doing portraits ? I love doing portraits. Something about the human face just fascinates me.

Daily Sketch "Matilda"

Artwork by Lynda D'Souza
Title: Matilda
Graphite on Sketch paper

This portrait was done on my sketch pad paper and I found the paper too stark - too white - for what I wanted the end result to look like. Plus it transferred quite a bit of the graphite on the page that went over it. Think I am going to stick to my manila paper from here on.

Daily Sketch "Grace"

Title: Grace
Graphite on Manila Paper

Been in India for 3 weeks and took my sketching tools with me but was too busy to get any sketchwork done. So plan to start again this week and have some great images lined up for repro.

Daily Sketch "Mixed Potion"

Title: Mixed Potion
Graphite on manila paper

I really like this manila paper - its got great textures (maybe a little too much) and a nice warm color. Did this with Staedtler graphites and added some white pencil highlights.

Daily Sketch "Rozette"

Title: Rozette
Graphite on sketch paper with watercolors

Added a bit of water color blue to the back...............turned out awright!

Painting workshop - completed painting

This is the completed painting of Mr Antonio completed in 12 hours at school. It was the first time I was painting over a stretched period of time and with a dried canvas. Most of my previous work I have done alla prima and over 3-5 days. So much I learned....and painting from a live model is..........ah what's the word........exquisite. Yes exquisite, because it allows one to see so many colors. This was a workshop without instruction so the painters all did their own thing - its more like playing with our paint.

Click here to see pics of the studio and the model himself. 

Portrait of Chanel

Title: Chanel

Oil on canvas

10 x 10 inches

CLICK HERE TO BUY

Uploaded this painting in the shop recently. Really pleased with the softness in the face, loved the process of blending. 

Wow...it's 2 0 1 1 ...

My X'mas break went on for a little longer than I expected but I am backkkkk !!
Happy New Year everyone....do hope you had a wonderful start to this year...it feels promising and hopeful and new!! I hope you get to try out everything you wanted to...and more!

Just completed this portrait on hardboard using a stippling technique which allowed the blending of colors to have a smoother finish than if I was just brushing it on....don't ask me where or how I know this because I really do not know how I ended up doing it this way. I tried it.....it worked and so I continued stippling for the entire face. Ooh I do love painting portraits....such a challenge...so much detail yet so much form....I would be quite happy just doing portraits all my life.

STAR Portraits on Bravo TV CA

Since some of the artists on the reality show Star Portraits are from my art school I have been watching the series and am quite fascinated by the talent in Canada. I like that the show invites different kinds of artists ranging for oil painters, water colorists to encaustic artists, etc. One of my favorite paintings was of Gordon Pinsent done by artist Jim Bourke in wax medium (encaustic) and I love how the background color is repeated in the face, the impressionistic quality of the work and the bright colors....simply superb.

If you are a lover of the arts you will enjoy the show.

The growing popularity of portraits

Pic and article via the Apartmenttherapy blog

Classic forms of art never go out of style, but recent years have seen a resurgence of portrait popularity. Apartment Therapy has discussed stranger's portraits, portraits in the bedroom, vintage portraits, pet portraits, and just about everything in between. What's clear is that portraits — like the living subjects themselves — never fail to elicit emotion.

Click here to read the full article.