Colored Pencils

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.

Before Christmas I was very busy working on two projects I was giving as Christmas presents....and I would like to share these pieces with you.

My granddaughter, Jessica, loves everything involving princesses. So, for her Christmas present, I decided to do the Disney Castle. This picture is done on 16x20 mi-teintes paper (orchid colour), and the entire piece is done with coloured pencils. I had a lot of fun experimenting with the pencils to get the right look for the castle, but, I must admit, the bricks at the bottom did get a little tiresome after the first couple of hours working on them! It was a huge undertaking, and I was definitely happy with the results. I was also very happy to finally complete the picture! However, it looks like I have to do another one - my granddaughter, Abigail, now wants a castle for her wall.....

In my collection of pictures I had one of my granddaughter, Abigail, with this wonderful, crazy hat. It was a picture I just loved. So, I decided to try my hand at doing a coloured pencil portrait from the picture. Although, I had done some portrait work using patterns, I had never attempted one from scratch. It was an interesting undertaking. I did the hat first - it was fun, - I had a great time and was very pleased with the way it turned out. Then came the face, the eyes, nose and mouth - it wasn't nearly as much fun as the hat! I made several corrections along the way, and I really had to do some experimenting with the various skin shades. I finished off with the shirt, which was very easy, and did not take much time at all. For my first portrait I am pleased.....I learned a lot, and I am looking forward to doing more portraits in the future. I gave this portrait to my daughter, Jill (Abigail's mother), for Christmas, and she was very pleased with it.

For the next month I will be taking a break from my art work - I will be working on other projects that I need to complete. However, I still have lots of pictures that the girls in my art sessions completed, and I will be posting them every month or so. So, please check back in a few weeks.