Nature art

I love nature. I like to paint landscapes, but sometimes I like to draw or paint the things that are up close that we sometimes pass over. My sister took a photo of a leaf on a sidewalk. I thought it was the coolest photo, so I asked her if I could draw it. I tried it once in pastel, and that didn't work so well. I started it again with colored pencil, but on a certain type of paper, and it wasn't going well. So, after I took the portrait class, I tried it again on this other paper that has worked well for colored pencils, and this was the result:

My nephew

I offered to draw my nephew as a gift for my in-laws at Christmas time. They gave me a couple of pictures to draw from, and I did one in pastel. But I also like the other photo - the two photos have different things I like in them, so, for fun, I decided to draw the 2nd one also, in colored pencil this time. They both have a different feel. And, I have to say, I loved doing the checkered shirt - it was a fun challenge.

Colored pencil

I have a new love. I still like my graphite pencils, and I still like my pastels, but I have a new medium that I have never really gotten into before, and now I love it. I happened to come across a class on the Craftsy.com site that was drawing realistic portraits in colored pencil. It looked really cool and had great reviews on it, so I decided to try it. And I have fallen in love with colored pencils. I had no idea that they could be used this way, let alone how to do it. I have done some colored pencil things in the past - way back in high school and college. But really, they felt more like coloring book drawings. I could do some mild shading, but you could see the stroke lines and I didn't have the good colored pencils anyway. So, I set those aside and didn't even consider it an option. And then I found this class. The teacher was great. And she gave good feedback. So, I did some practice sketches and decided to just try it. The result amazed me. The portraits I have done with these pencils are my favorite so far.  I have done 3 - starting around January or February this year. I did Madeline. Then Audrey. Then I had to take a break and I did some other art in the mean time. Then a few weeks ago I did Olivia (I was going to do Jonathan next but I just was dying to try Olivia's eyes and it just flew from there. ) And now I am working on Jonathan and it is going pretty well. Here are the 3 portraits of my kids that I have done: