Thursday, May 24, 2007

I think I've done hundreds


Over the last 35 years or so, I can safely say that I have done hundreds of portraits in pencil. It's just something I have always done, from the time I was a teen. I sketched my brothers and sisters, my parents and grandparents, my friends and neighbors. A few of these old drawings still hang in my mother's house... my sisters at age 6 and 14, one of my brothers at 16. They all have some gray hair now, but on the portrait wall they are forever young!

Pencil portraits were my main thing from the mid eighties to the mid nineties. I sketched so many local children that I couldn't keep them straight in my head. I would meet them in the store and feel bad that I didn't remember their names. I remembered the faces, though! I sometimes recognize adult people whose portraits I drew when they were 10 years old. I guess faces are forever, at least in my brain.

I still do portraits, because I just love faces! This beautiful face belongs to my niece, Grace.

3 comments:

Carol Marine said...

This is beautiful, Liz!!! Very elegant. Welcome to art blogging!

Mary Sheehan Winn said...

Nice portraits. Very well drawn!
Welcome to the blogosphere :)

Alvin Richard said...

Hi Liz,
Your portait sketches are wonderful. Simple, yet precise, capturing the essence of this girl. I love the way you do the shadows with lines instead of shades of grey. Doing a portrait is something, but capturing emotions in the gesture of a calm face is something else. And this, you do it brilliantly.