Trying new faces

Now that I have done portraits of my children, I wanted to see how hard (or easy) it would be doing faces of people I don't know as well.  It started with this portrait:

This drawing is of a dear friend of ours who passed away in October. I debated even putting it on this blog, because I SO don't want this particular drawing to be about me (hey look at me, look what I did) but since the purpose of this blog is to document what art I have done, and this blog is primarily for me, I am putting it. I was SO nervous about giving this to them - what if it didn't look like him? I think I spent twice as long on it too, trying to get every last detail in, and have it be accurate. They were very happy with the gift, and that made me happy. I realized I like doing art that has some meaning for people. 

So, having tried a face of someone who doesn't live with me, I offered to a friend of mine to try drawing her children, making no guarantees, but I wanted to try other faces. I learned a few things.

1. It is very nerve-wracking to draw someone else's kids (family members, etc) because I just don't know if I have it right

2. Blond hair is really hard to do on a white background (though I like this "clean" look on these portraits)

3. I want to keep trying, because I really like doing portraits.

My friend has four children, but I have not done the other two yet. I will post them when they are done.