New Year... New directions

Happy New Year to everyone out there! Hope you had an awesome night last night, and were not regretting it this morning. Jane and I went into Mooloolaba for new years eve. We sat down on the beach watching the fireworks, and also saw Josh Pyke play. We had a really great (and really late) night.

Anyhow, here's the last of the portraits that I've drawn so far. This one was commissioned by my friend's daughter as a Christmas present for her Dad. It was probably my favourite one to draw so far because, being such a close up photo, I could put so much detail into it. If you want a portrait drawn, please email me at summertimeink@gmail.com for a price list.

Mum and Dad Portrait

So here we are. Christmas is over. The ham and turkey have been finished off and the mountain of snack food is slowly getting smaller, eclair by eclair, pretzel by pretzel. This drawing is the one I did for Mum and Dad as part of their Christmas present. They recently got back from a trip to Europe and this drawing was put together from a few photos taken somewhere in France:

Drawing a full length picture is so different to drawing close up portraits of faces. I had to get all the details and folds of the clothing for starters, and then trying to fit all the detail of a face into the size of a 20c coin is much more difficult than having a whole page to do it in. But here was the final result. Drawn in 2B pencil on paper.

 

Faces for Funding

Hey all.

I can't believe it's been over a month since my last post. Work has kept me pretty busy and the only drawing I've been doing is some portraits for the Faces for Funding funding project. Most of these are Christmas presents for people - so I can't publish them online before Christmas. I will, however, put them up on the blog after Christmas. Here's one that I can post now, of my parents-in-law, Liam and Helena.

 

I'm on holidays now whoop whoop! So I can get back into a bit of drawing. I have a few more faces to draw and then I'll start experimenting with a few different styles of drawing. I think I'll go back to Japanese style art for a while.

If you would like to buy a portrait to support Faces for Funding, it's not too late... but it IS too late to get it before Christmas. Any money raised will go to support Peter and Wendy (and family) to go to Cambodia to work in community development.

I nearly forgot the movember update! A big thank you to everyone who donated to Movember last month. $130 was raised in total to help find a cure for prostate cancer and to provide support for men who suffer from depression. It was fun growing the mo but alas it was time for it to go. Here was the final product.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading :)

Movember update

 Thank you to the awesome people who have donated money so far! I've raised $95 so far, but would love to see it continue to rise as the moustache grows longer.

Show your support by donating here: http://au.movember.com/mospace/220781/

Portrait of a boy

I decided to draw the boy from the front of the U2 1983 album, War. I've always loved the photograph so I figured I'd have a go at drawing it. This is the first time I've drawn the eyes clearly open, facing the camera.

Portrait of Jane 2

I drew another portrait of Jane tonight. This time the challenge was to try to get the texture of the veil across the entire picture. After I did the outline, I scored the paper with a pin in a criss-cross pattern where the veil was to be. Then when I shaded over the top, the scored lines were to remain white. This worked to some degree, but not as much as I was hoping. I think it covered up the white lines when I used my finger to soften the pencil strokes. When I was doing the scoring, I also accidentally rubbed out a few of my outlines - which made it difficult to get those parts right. It was good to try new things - I will have to try that effect again sometime to see if I can perfect it.

Still looking for takers for the Faces for Funding project to raise money for the Kane family who is going to Cambodia with Interserve. If you would like a portrait drawn, please email me at summertimeink@gmail.com with the photo you would like drawn and how much you would like to donate.

Peace out!

Practice Koi Fish Tatoo

As I haven't actually tattooed anything in weeks, I started a new tattoo on a practice skin on Sunday. I did the outline with a 5RL needle and started the shading with a 7FS needle. My hand was very shaky at first - but I used this to my advantage to do the ends of the fins and did the rest of the outline as my hand got more steady.

Unfortunately, these practice skins do not hold a lot of the colour in them and it even holds some colours more than others. Every time I tried to shade with the red, most of it came off again when I wiped it over. I had to experiment with the length of the needle to get it right, and finally got somewhere with it. Yellow on the other hand stayed without any problems. The black was much darker, but the more I wiped it, the less ink remained. I can't wait to get in more practice to actually try it on some skin!

In other news... Movember is upon us and a mo is upon my face. Where will my mo end up this Movember? Nobody knows, but now you and all your friends can keep informed with this handy dandy mo-o-meter:

Show your support of Movember by donating here.