Ella & Anna In Charcoal & White Pastel

[Timothy C. Tyler]

Lara, I too like them. If you want a suggestion I'd like to see the arms and lower parts feather out, or break up a bit. Sargent and Poudon (sic) did what I mean here. I think a place where your lovely handling faded off into a less worked area would just make the fine parts more impressive by virtue of having a visual foil.

[Patricia Joyce]

Lara,
These are so beautiful. I would love to see close ups of the features. Your touch is so soft. Do you use vine charcoal and stumps or tortillons? I'm off to check out your website

You have some creative uses of paper and charcoal and hints of color. And your work gets more and more beautiful. These last two, by far my favorites. How many hours do you put into one portrait?

[Lara Cannon]

Thank you for the suggestion Timothy. I have been thinking about the same idea. Believe it or not, I thought I had loosened up as I moved away from the face. In person you can see a little more breaking down of the finish work toward the edges. But now that you mention it, I can see where feathering would be nice. Thanks, it is always helpful to have fresh eyes & insights.

Thank you for the nice comments Patricia. The girl with the loose pony tail was a labor of love. I completely finished three versions before I was happy. I even had it framed and delivered it and then I asked for it back. The angle from above was incredibly difficult for me to mentally understand. I could never get the perspective quite right. I found a book called "Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters" by Robert Beverly Hale that helped a great deal. I highly recommend it.

I couldn't even guess the hours. The other girl went more smoothly, and I did very little correction on it. I would guess 40 to 60 hours. I do not use vine charcoal. I make too much of a mess with the stuff. I use charcoal pencils. I also use chalk pastels in black, white and gray.

Thanks again!

[Patricia Joyce]

"Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters". I have that book too, it sits on my bookshelf looking verrrry used! I pull it down and look/read it over and over!