Latest Portraits!

(see the cat?!)

These are the latest oil sketches I've done... all on Zoom with my awesome Portrait Pals. : ) I call them sketches because the poses are short and the panels are about 7x9". Sometimes I touch them up but often, I leave them alone. They are what they are! : )

Portrait of Me from a Friend!

Hey, I thought I'd share this watercolour painting that a friend did of me. I just love it! I sat last Sunday at our portrait painting session, for 25 minutes, and I really think she captured me. : )

Lines!!

This portrait sketching exercise is about drawing fast, using as few lines as possible (I tried to stick to 20...) and using both the point and side of the pencil. I loved this process. I wish I did them on artist quality paper. They are on newsprint and I have yet to learn the lesson, always use good paper! ; )

some faces!

 

Prismacolor Coloured Pencil Portraits. Hmm... despite having fun with coloured pencils recently, they just aren't for me. They loose their point quickly because they are so soft (wax), unlike pencils (graphite). I gave it three chances and now I'm moving onto something else.

Also, they are very difficult to erase. Uh oh!

; )

Prismacolor Coloured Pencils

Some fellow artist and I from, the Toronto Plein-Air Group, met at the awesome Riverdale Farm to do some sketching. In order to take colour out of the equation and get back to basics, I decided to draw with Prismacolor Coloured Pencils on newsprint. 

 I used Sepia because it's a nice warm brown (although it's a bit hard to tell with my location photos). Newsprint is equally good and bad. It's soft so it's lovely to draw on. It 'takes' so many drawing media, like pencil, coloured pencil and charcoal, so nicely. But, it yellows over time since it isn't acid-free. Very  frustrating! So, I'm on the search for a paper than is smooth like newsprint and allows erasing as easily. I guess I'll have to go back to my favourite place... the art store. ; )

 Here's a detail. 

So great to be back out there plein-air drawing. I've only been twice this summer. That'll have to change!

Pencil Portraits

I looooove to draw so, even when there isn't time to paint, I always find time to draw. These are 6B pencil studies from my sketchbooks. I use the Faber-Castell 9000 Jumbo pencils because they are so nice to hold, and kinda 'chunky' with some weight to them. ; )

Here's a pic -

a couple of sketchbook pages

 Today, with my 8x10" sketchbook, I finished a page of little pencil portraits.
And over the holidays, I had fun sketching some elephants. (Baby elephants are so frickin' cute!)

antelope sketchbook page

Here's my Antelope study page from my sketchbook, done in mechanical and 6B pencils. The rings on their horns are quite fascinating and more defined than I previously thought. It's fun doing these studies before venturing into a painting. I like the free images website called Pixabay. : )

Other news.... Inktober starts soon!

Sketchbook - Rabbits!!

Sketchbook page of rabbits! 

I used two pencils for this page. I just discovered the Faber-Castell Jumbo 9000 6B pencil which is quite smooth and dark. I love it. It's the green one on top of the second pencil, a .07mm mechanical. I blocked in with the mechanical pencil  then just went for it with the dark Jumbo pencil. : )

Horse Anatomy

Thanks to my two favourite animal drawing books, I've got my horse anatomy figured out. It's been a few weeks of hard work, filling sketchbooks with horse drawings while studying bones and muscles and thinking about how they move. I'm now confident I've got a handle on it. So, moving onto horse paintings. : )

language

$100 - 8x10"original watercolour painting

I love drawing and painting people in cafes. I thought the lights hanging from the ceiling encouraged the perspective. These two friends were talking about learning a language however, the title also refers to people's body language, like the way his head is tilted and the posture of the guy writing in the background. : )

closeups - 

some sketches

Here are a few recent sketches. Two are drawn with 6B pencil and the middle one is a watercolour with no drawing first. Just went for it with pink and green paint, which is very rare for me. I don't normally use much green in faces, but after doing that piece, I've added green to my palette.

N.B. I am away for a short vacation. : ) All purchased paintings will be shipped on Tuesday April 25th. Thanks for your patience. 

Sketchbook - animal pages

My March sketchbook is filling up nicely. I love to draw draw draw, but it doesn't leave much time to paint paint paint! ; )

sketchbook

Here are a few pages from my March sketchbook. 

I use 6B pencil or .07mm mechanical pencil, depending on my mood that day. Except for the last page, I drew the portraits from life. 
I used to draw everything on newsprint, because the inexpensive paper kept my drawings loose. But now I've got random saved pieces of newsprint kicking about... 

As of March, I decided to keep a sketchbook. It seems to be forcing me to take more care with my drawings, which is great. I do believe that it's all about the drawing. And, being tight and specific in sketchbooks is helping me draw confidently and loosely when approaching watercolour paper. : )

Meerkats! - YouTube sketching videos

I've posted 4 quick videos (about 1 minute each) of me sketching on my YouTube Channel. Click here to see the others!
This is one of my favourites, of two meerkats! Enjoy.

Toronto Watercolour Society Portrait Demo

I had a great time at the Toronto Watercolour Society meeting last night. The awesome and hilarious Brian Smith did a portrait demo for us, with a big screen projecting his work. : )

1 minute video of me sketching

Recently, while at a cafe, I made a little video of myself sketching with a 6B pencil.
I can't seem to get the video to upload here... so click the link and you can check it out on my instagram page! 
https://www.instagram.com/noramacphailart/
It's also on my Facebook page. Meanwhile, I'll figure out how to make the clip file smaller so blogger will accept it next time, since I plan to do more!  : p

Sheila in Blue

This piece is from my first session back in portraits. Took a while to find my way again! I'm excited to see where my pursuit of portrait painting will take me this year!

Tree Studies

A few long overdue tree studies.

tea and cinnamon

$40 - 5x7"painting with 8x10"mat

I drew this while enjoying a tea with cinnamon myself. 

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