Monday, January 26, 2009

I'm not ready to have a baby!

Is what my 11 year old declared with great anguish when she heard my classmate wanted me to draw her grandbaby. I quickly agreed and assured her, women decided at different times when to have babies. I chose later in life. After she left the room with a look of relief I thought to my self, I don't have the heart to tell her this lady was a couple of grades younger than me.

A quick pastel [8x10 with a little color pencil] done with a couple of corrections after being reviewed by my friend. As you could see I was challenged by the jpg she sent to me. It was low resolution and had a mom glued to her cheek. What do YOU do when this happens?

I'd love to hear how you've dealt with this issue. HUGS!!



15 comments:

Carolyn Finnell said...

When someone asks me to work from one of their photos, I always tell them that I will need to see the photo first to determine if I can work from it. Most of the time I ask them to give me several photos and I may use 2 or 3 to work up my drawing. Most of the time I work from photos I've taken (and I take a lot). Even then I usually use more than 1 as reference.
Carolyn

dominique eichi said...

What a beautiful and fresh portrait . Sheila well done.

Stephen Dell'Aria said...

Nice sketch Sheila. Not sure I'd have done anything different. I think it turned out fine. About the olny other thing you could have tried might have been to include the portion of the other woman's face but I like how you did it better.

r garriott said...

I think you did a great job with what you ahd to work with. And everything Carolyn says, I totally agree with.

Unknown said...

Thanks all! Like I keep saying I continue to learn and I have met more generous and talented people here.

artbyakiko said...

You have done a great drawing from the photo! When I do (animal) portraits, I usually ask several photos that are well focused, then I pick one of them as the base and use the other photos for reference to details.

artpaw said...

Nice work, cute story about your daughter's comment.
I usually try to work with what is sent if at all possible. Everyone has digital cameras these days and can often shoot again, but if thy don't have an eye for photography they may continue to send you challenging pics. You did a great job of filling in the cheek with your imagination. Also in a case like this do a google image search for babies to find a similar pose and use another baby cheek as a visual reference. Keep up the great work!

Michelle said...

Hey Sheila,

You handled the tricky photo nicely. You know what your doing! ;) She's cute as a button. But from past experience, I know that working from poor quality photos makes the job much less fun. I guess we must insist on better quality photo references.

Michelle said...

Sheila, Just an afterthought...I think you should sell more of your artwork on your blog. :)

Edward Burton said...

Beautiful job, Sheila! Very well done.

Dean H. said...

Great job, Sheila...you had to rely in large part upon imagination-memory in order to complete the face without the distortion cause by the mom's face.
The only other option (short of another photo) would have been to include something like a pillow in place of the grownup face.

Kim VanDerHoek said...

You came up with a very nice solution for this portrait!

I agree with Carolyn's post about the photos. And if you are the one in control of the photography you can also control the lighting. That way you could add drama and not have to deal with a washed-out shot where a flash was used.

James Parker said...

I think you did an excellent job with the portrait. Now as to the problem. A glued Mom to the cheek is something you probably haven't encountered in Forensics. I usually use a little warm, soapy water to unstick, but Turpentine may be necessary. Glad to help.

Mary Paquet said...

Sheila, this is a beautiful piece. Grandma must have been very pleased!!

Unknown said...

I'm going to echo everyone else's thoughts Sheila - you did a fine job with a dificult reference photo!