Cupcakes

10" x 8" colored pencil on bristol
© 2009 Stephanie Smith

Portrait of a Man

This is my submission for the most recent Different Strokes from Different Folks challenge- a portrait of a fellow DSFDF artist. After artists who wanted to participate submitted their own photos, the blog moderator, Karin Jurick, paired us up with another artist to paint.

I don't know this man's name but his photo was interestingly lit with deep contrasting shadows. I drew a few studies of it before I ended up with the final seen here.

Portrait of a Man
colored pencil on paper
























It was hard to paint another person I didn't know. I hope I got his likeness accurately enough and at least close enough to not offend! Unlike painting or drawing a scene with which you can totally fudge, imagine parts of and "take artistic license", someone's face creates a lot more pressure– at least for this realistic artist.

I am happy that it is done and can't wait to see what I end up looking like!

Shopper Shadows

7" x 5" colored pencil on bristol
©2008 Stephanie Smith

This was my first attempt at doing a submission for Karin Jurick's Different Strokes blog, but I had my days mixed up and missed the deadline.

Woman Walking

7" x 5" colored pencil on bristol
© 2008 Stephanie Smith

This is my first submission for artist Karin Jurick's blog Different Strokes from Different Folks.

She posts a photograph each Wednesday and takes artists submissions within the week's time. She also will link your site to your name on the blog, so it's a great place to see other people's work, and I appreciate the possible exposure to others.

For this week's reference photo from Karin, she posted it upside down– and told us we were to paint it upside down, to paint what we see rather than what we know. I followed suit, but found that about 75% of the way through it I was getting bored! This made me realize the constant "dialogue" I have with the subject I am drawing, while I am creating it...from start to finish. I gave in and flipped it over and was so much happier while finishing the piece. Very interesting!

I am looking at these photos from Karin's blog as exercises or assignments. I hope to explore a little bit and see what can develop from it.