Baby On Board

This one was a gift to friends who recently got their first child, a beautiful little girl called Helena. The drawing is based on one of the very first pictures that were made. The angle from which it was taken made it both funny and touching. So here's my tribute to Rembert and Véronique on a job well done.

The Metamorphosis

Another older "silly" piece. Nobody laughed harder at Narcisme van iemand anders than Charles, so that was all the incentive I needed to start this. Some of the people who'd seen this one asked about it, so I decided to include it here. The original is now in Charles' office, staring back at the drawing that made it happen in the first place, hanging from the opposite wall. As always, you can click on the picture to see it in more detail.

Inge goes bunny

This one is a bit older than the last couple (a full six weeks old!), but it's pretty and it has bunny ears so it had to be on here. I was quite pleased with this one at the time, though I can see one or two flaws now that are entirely my doing and in no way related to the model's loveliness which is beyond dispute.

The Dark Angel

Another portrait of Kat, with a slightly gothic take this time and it doesn't get much cooler than this. The outfit was a bit of a challenge, armed with nothing but a graphite pencil, but I think I managed to pull it off well enough. Definitely one of my favourites.

Clin d'oeil

This was a bit of a special request from a close friend, in loving memory of her father who recently passed away. I hesitated before posting it here, but it is still one of my very best renderings, for which I am glad.

Narcisme van iemand anders

One of my less serious portrayals of a great artist and friend. The title, which translates as Someone else's narcissism, refers to his habit of describing his occasional self-portraits as narcissistic and does not suggest a supposed character flaw. Friends might recognise the little framed picture in the background as one of said self-portraits.

The Naiad

Officially, I call this one The Naiad (Water Nymph). Some people however might recognise her real life alter ego as my dear friend Kat who got her hair wet...

Blog launch

This is in all likelihood the longest post you're ever going to read here, so bear with me, this won't hurt (much).

The aim of this blog will be to share some of the portraits I've made recently of friends, co-workers and their relatives. Most of these are (trying to be) faithful representations based on actual pictures. I'm working from photographs, partly because I'm slow (a large portrait will take anything from 3 to 6 hours to complete), but mainly because I've had no artistic instruction whatsoever and don't really *know* what I'm doing. I think that's okay, since I'm only doing this for fun and give away the finished works to the people who requested/modelled for them.

For the time being (at least), the scans you see will be of old fashioned graphite pencil drawings. I try to experiment with different techniques and effects, but tend to stick with higher and lower concentrations of small dots for simulating shades and highlights in skintones. Trials with colours and paints have yielded interesting, but not really satisfying results, so don't expect to see any of those on here soon.

I've only been doing this for a couple of months now, mainly to show a girl I could still surprise her after all this time (isn't that how we tend to make all big and small decisions in life, ey?), so hopefully there is some improvement yet to be made.

So anyway, if you're still reading this, you'll know by now that you didn't *really* need this information to enjoy the pictures. I wish I could give you back the few minutes of your life you spent reading this, but let's face it, you would only have wasted them anyway...

S. of W.

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