14 x 11 inches, charcoal on paper
This month's reference for the Virtual Sketch Date was a photo of two sister's at a hoedown. I decided to focus on just one of the sisters. I also decided to do it in charcoal. It's been a while since I've used charcoal and I rarely do portraits. I ended up covered in charcoal so I must have had fun with it. I was nervous about it at first since I don’t often do portraits, but I’m kind of pleased with it, all things considered.
I've been traveling to conventions and vacationing and just being busy. Now I've just got to get my muse back on track. Sometimes my art focus feels disjointed, often brought on by people asking what I paint. (Answer: Whatever I'm in the mood to paint.) There are things I don't often paint or draw, people for example. I've been trying to work on that more lately. Otherwise, it's mostly what stirs me. Robert Genn's recent letter on Working Your Muses and Jeannette's post about What Warms Your Soul got me to thinking about focus again. So I made a list of all of the things that have interested me and stirred me. There's art and museums of course but there's also nature, water, geology, science in general, cityscapes, moonlit nights, and plants. I keep adding to the list but it's all starting to come together into something (what I don't know). It's getting my muse anxious to start. In the meantime, since I've been working on sketching people, this is a sketch from a photo of Rick while he's waiting to do a magic show. It's not a perfect likeness but it's not bad. We were at the mall and it was one of those moments when the light was perfect. So I snapped a photo before he caught on so I could sketch it later.
