Self Portrait (water colors)

Self Portrait (cross-hatching)

Self Portrait (Conte crayons)

Self Portrait (oils)

Oh yeah, and It's C-bomb's birthday. Happy Birthday, 'Bomb!

Self Portrait (stipple)

Self Portrait (shadow)

Self Portrait (classic comic)

Self Portrait (inked)

jhkjh

Self Portrait (pencil lines)

Here is the next step in the progression.

Self Portrait (blue line)

I was late to join myspace, I was late to join facebook, and I am late to this whole blogging game.
I wanted my myspace profile pic to show-off how comfortable I am drawing in different mediums. The idea is that this animated gif would inspire/encourage people to hire me to draw portraits.

What an ego maniac!

Mr. Witherspoon, 2010

My second principal (as a teacher) was Mr. Ross Witherspoon. I drew this portrait on 9X12 inch paper and blew it up to poster size on the computer. Once it was poster sized, the entire school signed it (like a giant poster board sized card.) I don't have a photo of the PTA president presenting it to him (and I was there!) but the scan on the right is a VERY close approximation of what he wound up with.

Mrs. Huckaby's Mom, 2009

Surprisingly, Mrs. Huckaby called me from out of the blue. She wanted me to draw a portrait of her mother for her 90th birthday. As you can see from the first picture, I made her hair too gray. I made it darker in Photoshop with the airbrush tool while retaining the highlights. I thought it had a very "Struzan" finish.

Happy Accident! Yus!

My First Principal...

...as a teacher. Mrs. Huckaby took a chance on me so I felt extremely loyal to her. And I still do.

Her last year at Oak Ridge Elementary School was also my last year (2007). She was retiring, and the PTA president wanted me to create the cover for her retirement program/scrapbook cover. I was about to whip this up during a planning period.

Another Co-worker's Portrait

Word was getting around. Another member of the third grade team asked me to draw a portrait of her and her husband for their 1-year wedding anniversary.

Ex-co-workers' Grand Son

Here's the grand son.

Ex-co-workers' Grand Daughter

Back in the Oak Ridge Elementary days, a co-worker asked me if I drew portraits. She had had the portraits of her grand kids drawn years ago, but her daughter had recently adopted a baby from China. She wanted me to add this new child. I did it, and it was the first portrait I had drawn in years. I thought it turned out pretty good. I draw portraits so rarely, that it always feels like beginners luck when they turn out half-way decent.

I do not have a picture of this portrait.

But...
another co-worker visited this teacher's house, saw the picture, and quickly commissioned me to draw her grand kids as a Christmas present. Here's the grand daughter.

Rembrandt

Keeping guard over my desk. Like the Van Gogh portrait, this one was also abandoned. I really wanted to add layers of color/light to his face so he wouldn't look so flat. Two years later I thinking, "whatever."

Picasso

This Pablo is only 5'3."

Rockwell

Here's Norman Rockwell. This was inspired/lifted from his Saturday Evening Post cover with the three self portraits. The biggest difference is that I made a black-poster board pipe that I still haven't ever stuck on his mouth. Smoking's a bad habit kids. Don't do it!

da Vinci

Here's our August/September Artist of the Month.

Faith Ringgold

Here's Faith Ringgold. What's neat about this is that I had the kids help paint a life-sized "Tar Beach" on a quilt I bought at Goodwill one year. I was tired of showing kids prints of the painting and explaining to them that actually a big painting on a quilt. I usually display the quilt with this artist portrait. Now they can see fer realz.

Georgia O'keefe

Chuck and I affectionately refer to her as Ma Kent.

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol. Duh.

Vincent Van Gogh

Abandoned. Not finished.

Claude Monet

I tried to paint each artist in the style they were known for. I figgered it wuz more ejukational that way.

Frida Kahlo

Back in the Spring of 2009, I was really running out of ideas for my FOCUS group. The kids were acting up and my tolerance of my job comes to an all time low leading into Spring Break. The 3rd Nine Weeks is actually 11-12 weeks long. I decided to appropriate some wood form another art teacher (Thanks Pam Brewster!) and drew/cut out the forms of nine artists from art history. I would have two two kids paint the figure (mostly "flats" under my direction) and after school I would add details. These have come in handy in the years since then because they can be carted around classrooms and add color to boring hallways. They have become a unique feature to our school. Many of them decorate my classroom this year, as you can plainly see.

Superman Door, 2007

This doesn't really count as a mural because it's a painting on a door, but it's a good segue into September's "Portrait Month!" here at Plot Developments.

Local comic shop, the Cosmic Cat, was doing a charity event where they would give a door to local artist/patron a month. Once they accumulated a years worth of door, they would collect them into a calendar and sell the door for charity. They never really got enough doors so the project has been sidelined indefinitely. I was the first person to paint a door.

I figured that since comic nerds like myself would want to buy the door, I put a lot of consideration into what kind of door I would want for my office (if I still had one upstairs that is.) My door is doubled sided. Fleischer studios inspired Clark-Kent-changing-in-a-stock-room on one side, and Ta-Da! Superman racing out of the door when you opened it.

Superman on a door is hardly a mural or a portrait but it is a life-sized painting on a piece of wood which is a good starting point for portrait month.

Nursery 3, 2007

Did I say wild fire?
What I meant was candle fire. You know, just kind of stays in the same place until it burns out.

Here is another mural for the same family, the following year. It's the last "mural" I've worked on.

But my new principal tells me she'll be keeping me busy this year.

Nursery 2, 2006

After the Oak Ridge cafeteria mural, word-of-mouth led to me painting at the fairgrounds. This marketing thing was easy. Eventually, I was recommended to paint a nursery for a family in a nearby neighborhood. Hear it is.

Word was already spreading like wild fire...

Nursery 1, 2005

In late spring 2005, we decided to give our "office" over to the soon-to-be-arriving baby. What's cool about this room is that all the family members that were here for the baby shower contributed to painting the animals in the alphabet.