Portrait of Cade

[Nancy]

Cade is a young boy in my church. He has the cutest face and is a sweetheart, so I just had to draw him. After about 1 1/2 hours of trying to follow him around the church taking pictures of him (I don't like people to pose for pictures - it's too artificial), I finally got one I felt I could paint a portrait from. This is just something for me, practicing doing people.

I know it still needs a few touch-ups. I noticed part of his upper lip looks like it has a blotch of pink on it, and his shirt absolutely stinks!!!!! *UGH* :eek: It's awful, but it's a loooooong and ugly story how it got that way. I also hated the eyelashes I did. I have never been able to do eyelashes, so I need to touch those up as well. I guess if you look at it from a distance, you really can't see anything wrong with them.

Anyway, any c & c's are welcome, but it's pretty much done. I'm not making any big changes, just touch-ups. I was going to enter it into a national competition, but I don't think so now. I'm going to create something else instead. Granted I'm a beginner (only been using colored pencils and drawing for 7 months), but I don't think it's nearly good enough to be entered into a competition, especially a national one!

When I get it framed, I'm going to have them cut off most of the shirt. I hope his parents like it, but I'm glad I just did this for me and not as a commission!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/Npingree/CadePortraitWIP-6withlighting.jpg

Tools used: Prismacolor pencils, Bienfang 140 lb watercolor paper - NO DIGITAL TOUCH-UP!! This is a digital photo of my painting, with flash.

[Toni]

HI Nancy!

Yes, Cade looks like a real sweetheart. I can see why you wanted to paint his portriat.

being as your pretty much done with this i'll just make a couple comments if I may?

I'm assuming you've gotten a good likeness, his expression is very sweet. I'd like to see the eye on the right toned down a bit in the whites, that will help round out the facial features and establish the form in his face. With the BB cap shadowed on that side, the whites are probably subdued.

Also eyelashes. As you stated they are pretty much saying "look at me". With lashes its "less is more" and better to hint at them than acutally add them all.
Our brains will see them as lashes even if we just suggest them.

other than maybe a little more values on the shadow side of his nose, ( which might be washed out with the flash ) he looks pretty good.

Your doing great for a new CP user. Keep up the good work.

TJ

[Arlene]

this is wonderful even if you weren't starting out. and TJ gave you some very good advice.

I'll address the shirt. The problem is we have a tendency to draw "what we think we see" instead of drawing "what we see." So we have an idea of how folds and fabric "should" look and that's how we draw it instead of drawing what's actually there. I feel that's what you did with the shirt. correct me if i'm wrong.

Take a good look again at where the lightest lights are and the darkest darks...and see where the shadows fade out. That's what you draw. :) (draw the darks and lights, not the lines.)

one other point is that as well done as this is, i feel the face needs more values in it. Put into grayscale you can see how the values are all pretty much the same middle values without some darks and highlights. Put them in and you'll see the face really start to have more dimension.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you do next!

[Nancy]

Well, here's an update on the portrait:

I showed Cade's portrait to his parents at church last night. No one in the church knew I was painting Cade's portrait except his mom (Rebecca) and my husband (Warren). I showed Cade's dad, Duane, first. He just stared at it and kept saying, "Wow, that's great! I mean, that's really great!" - over and over. While he was looking at it, another man from church - Chris - walked by and caught sight of it and stopped and said, "Hey, that's really good. Who did that?" When I said, "I did," he looked at me and said, "You did that? I didn't know you were an artist?" I said, "Neither did I until a few months ago!"

Then I took it to show Cade's mom. Now, mind you, this is an extremely intelligent woman who doesn't miss much at all. She just looked at it and from the way she did and said nothing, I thought for sure she didn't like it. Finally, she said, "There's no doubt that's my child, I mean no one could NOT tell that's Cade." Then she covered up one side of his face and said, "This part looks exactly like him, the other side doesn't." What she was talking about was that I hadn't distinguished his ear from his cheek very well, so he looked a little deformed. Also, I missed a spot when I was adding his shirt (where it met his cheek), which made his cheek look even more deformed. I hadn't even notice these things until she pointed them out, so I'll fix them now. She said I got his eyes perfectly, because he has an unusual eye shape, and I really captured his lips really well too. Overall, she did like it.

Now, that wasn't all. Warren preaches on Wed. night's and that particular service has a lot of children present. After the service was over, he asked me if I minded if he showed the portrait to the kids (who were sitting in the pews up front). I was surprised but said it was okay. He went up there and said to them, "You all know Aunt Nancy draws, right?" (btw, my church is very family oriented and friendly. We're one big family, so all the adults are aunt or uncle to the kids, with the exception of Grandma Peele - the pastor's mother - who everyone calls Grandma). Warren continued, "Well, I'm going to show you something she made and I want to see if you recognize who it is." He showed them the portrait and they all raised their hands and shouted out, "Oh, it's cade!!" Meanwhile, when Cade realized the painting was of him, his eyes got big as saucers! Well, when the adults saw the painting, they all started talking. One of them, a friend of mine named Holly, said, "Nancy, I didn't know you could do that! Dang girl, that's really good! Oh, now we know, he's done it now. We're onto you!"

Afterwards, when we were leaving, Chris (Holly's husband and the man who saw the painting earlier) stopped me in the parking lot and said that he should get me to do a portrait of the whole family (they have two kids) and he'd like to get someone to do a portrait of him and his father. His father passed away and he's only got three pictures of him, none of which are with Chris. He's like me to do a portrait putting his dad and him in the same picture.

Anyway, the only thing I am worried about is that I don't think these people have no idea how much art like this costs. I figured out my prices and I run them a bit low because I'm so new at this, but a portrait the size of Cade's - which is an 8 x 10, would cost about $120, which equals $1.50 per sq. inch and pays me only $8.00 per hour. I don't look forward to seeing the looks on their faces when I tell them the prices. But, anyway, you never know. I haven't talked to any of them yet about actually doing anything for them, not even Chris. I was in too much shock last night at everyone's reaction about the portrait. The kids came over and wanted to look at it some more, asking me who I was doing next, etc. I think they were all hoping I would be doing them, but I'm doing a friend none of them know. They know I've been taking a lot of pictures with my digital camera while at church lately, but they didn't know it was to see if I could get some good shots to paint a picture from. Now they'll probably be more self-conscious when they see me aiming my camera at them, at least for awhile. One boy asked me if I was going to do everyone in the church!!! I said I couldn't possibly do that, I wouldn't have near enough time! They were cute!

So, that's how it all turned out last night. Sorry I rambled on so, but there was much to tell.

****Thanks, also, for your suggestions. I am going to touch it up a bit before I get it framed, but for now, I'm putting it aside. I've already started on my next two, another portrait and a flower. Both are surprise gifts to friends of mine. :D Now, an honest question looking for an honest answer: Would any of you enter this portrait in a competition, say the CPSA or the Artist's Monthly annual comp??? I'm thinking the beginner's section - I've only been doing any artwork for 7 months now.

[Arlene]

that's super news Nancy, but you're undersellling yourself. People who appreciate art WILL pay for it. I don't know where you live, so it's hard to give you an idea of pricing, but anywhere that's too low for a color portrait.

When you say you figured out the price at about $8 an hour did you also include the cost of the materials? did you include your overhead such as taking the photos, working with the customer, etc?

Here's a pricing strategy that's worked for me, and what's good about it is you can change what you pay yourself as you become more well known.

Pricing Strategy Thread (http://scribbletalk.com/showthread.php?t=192)

[Denise]

Nancy- that's wonderful news! Your portrait of Cade is very good, especially the lettering on the cap! I was gonna make the same suggestion about the values in the face, but Arlene beat me to it.

I hope the people in your church follow through w/ the commission. I had a similar reaction at my church, but no one would commit to a commission. Many said they wanted one until I talked price. Hopefully your experience is nothing like mine.

Honest answer about the competition- you have nothing to lose by trying and everything to lose by NOT trying. The worst that can happen is it is not accepted. As long as rejection doesn't derail you from persuing your art, go for it! If you take rejection personally, then I'd say don't do it until you get more experience behind you and you have enough confidence to take the possible rejection.

Denise

[sassybird]

What a precious face:) I think if you add some highlights to the shirt by deeping the hues here and there you will be happier with the over all result. The hat is perfect, so please leave that as is. I don't see the pink blotch on the lip that you speak of, but that could be my vision also. I can't get over how angelic he looks.