I’ve been trying to sketch more. These are from one of my larger sketch books. I also really want to work on capturing people’s forms and liveliness more. I always wish I could capture the particular essence of a person. But I do find these bust sketches to be quite beautiful themselves.

Working from images, be they paintings or photographs, is a way that I’ve been honing my skills. I find that I’m starting to see the nuances of layered colors that can really make a painting seem better than my sketches. I’ve also worked to begin to stretch myself to layer colors, to take risks while coloring an image.

I’ve been working a lot with Copic markers. I want to do a few colored pencil drawings of skin tones. I find that creating a flat field of color can be quite difficult for me. I also think that I may try to paint one or more of these portraits. I’ve realized that preparatory work can make a real difference in the quality of the final piece. Practice makes perfect.

As you can see on the last sketch and the notes I made, I have been trying to work out those things that I need to work on and study.