It's not finished yet but it's on the right track. I'm vary happy with the placement of the head on the canvas, I think it's much more powerful than the earlier central position.
Here's the under drawing for a painting of my son, TJ. I'm happy with the proportions, but I want to re-position him much lower on the canvas so there's more space into which he's looking.
18.10 This is the outline of a tonal study I'm doing. I'll update this entry as I go tonight, so this is a live entry. But, it's from the photo of my dad, as in the earlier portrait in ink this week. Hence the title.
So I have re-mixed 5 tones, and now I'm going to scrape back most of this canvas so far and start afresh. It's all for the good, I promise.
EEuw, nose is a funny shape and the mouth is too high up. How did that happen!
Gangan spent the weekend with us, and spent some time this morning reading the Sunday papers after church. The light from the kitchen window was beautiful so I took a couple of photos of him to work from at a later date. This is my first rendition, in Quink ink and white pastel.
This is a snuggly creature I've made for my nephew Tom. He doesn't read my blog, so I'm safe showing it here. My son slept with it last night, and my daughter will have it tonight. Then it'll get wrapped up safely, with air holes of course so it doesn't suffocate, ready for Christmas morning.
This is more like it, and the brother-in-law is on the Martini. The bad news is that I think I've lost my sister. Here's what happened; we read through an exercise in one of the books I'd brought on the stages of painting a still life in pastels - start out with a charcoal outline, then lay in the shadows gently, then put in the local colour of the objects, then develop these with modelling, and finally add detail. Mine was going fine, so I stopped for a bit to look at what my sister was doing, and made a few suggestions, and then some more. It was when I asked if she minded if I drew on her work to demonstrate what I was failing to convey in words and she adamantly told me NO! that I knew I'd overstepped the mark.
I'm home from our holidays and I'm back at work, the kids are back to school and it's time to get back into painting. I had no idea that it is the routine I have at home that allows me time for my art. While travelling with the kids, visiting family, day trips and picnics there's been little if no time to myself and for drawing or painting. I thought it would be otherwise, I imagined afternoons sketching while the children played, but we had a full calender and the five weeks have flown past.
Tomorrow I'm taking my two beautiful children to see their Gangan in County Limerick, Eire. He lives in a cottage high up the side of a hill, overlooking a valley and the hills beyond. Once there, Dad and I will stand at the kitchen window, or lean on the bottom half of the front door from about 6am onwards watching the valley wake up. He shares the hill with hares, a fox, swallows, pied wagtails, a rat, and loads of other LBJs (in birding terms this means 'little brown jobs'- relating to all small, quick, flitting blurred things you glimpse). 
I am really enjoying this project which my Dad inadvertently set me. There's life in the old girl yet. I have mentioned before that it's almost impossible to draw the kids from life. I lie, my son is easier to catch than my daughter, as he'll sit playing on his Nintendo DS, or crouch on the computer chair defeating fantasy monsters online. He's even almost still when watching a good film. My daughter, on the other had, twitches and squirms whatever she's doing, unless she's asleep. I do draw them from photographs, but it's not the same.
I used to draw my parents when I lived at home nearly 20 years ago. My Dad would be intent on the BBC 6 o'clock news, or reading the newspaper or a book. Likewise, when watching her chosen soap opera she was still - the rest of the time my mum would be in a frenzy of activity, always doing something.
My husband would be a good subject to draw as he, also, will sit still whilst watching DVDs. He's very handsome when asleep, but I know he can hear the scratch of my pencil when he's trying to drift off. I'll have to wait five more minutes til he's snoring deeply, and draw him then.
I've decided to number these, and to ask you what emotions you think they convey. I know what I was intending, I would like to know to what extent I was successful.
Sometimes Amy stays over. We watch films, drink beer (her) and wine (me) and sometimes do arty stuff. Last Friday we watched Romeo & Juliet and Moulin Rouge, and I sat drawing her with a 6B graphite stick. Some were good, some were wonky. Here are my two favorites.
My sister, Melanie, has asked an interesting question;
