It's Official

After much thought and consideration, after getting more requests for portraits drawn, and after a lot of time doing research in person and online, I have made the decision to officially  start doing commissioned portraits.

It is a little scary and a little exciting all at the same time. I have set up a new blog which basically runs as a website (meaning, I won't post regular entries like I do on this blog).  It links to this blog and I will still post my updates on art here.  The new website is racheljensenportraits.blogspot.com. 

As I have done more and more portraits, for me and for other people, I realized that I really like doing it.  And, as I learn more, my technique is improving, and I hope to continue to develop that skill. I just got to where I was getting enough requests that I figured I needed to be organized and set up an official "business" if you call it that.  I have no idea how this will all work out. I will probably do a lot of tweaking to the website and to my policies and procedures as I go until I figure out how to work this. I have gotten a lot of ideas from other portrait artists though, and I think I have a good start.

So, wish me luck.  :)

I am working on three portraits at the moment, so hopefully I will be posting some new entries soon. Getting the website set up this last week occupied most of my art time, and now I am ready to get drawing!

Family portraits

I really liked doing the pastel portrait of Jonathan, so I decided to try it again, this time with my friend's family of four kids.  I learned that freckles are pretty tricky, red hair is really fun - so many colors in it, and that it is hard to get skin tone to match from one portrait to another. It is also interesting to draw people from the same family - I see patterns in features - like the eyes or noses are similar, or they all have a thin upper lip, or something like that. 

 I was originally going to have them on a blank background, but the paper I chose was a tan color, and it didn't allow the faces to stand out much. The skin kind of blended in. So, because these were from outdoor portraits, I put in a green, nature-ish kind of background, again having a hard time getting it to match from one portrait to the next.

 But, all in all,  I really like the portraits.  I think they look pretty close to the actual kids (I hope so) and I feel like I learned a lot along the way.  The baby is the youngest child I have drawn so far, and that was a fun new challenge.