1/100 Grandpa

For my first one, I wanted to depict someone who is really special to me, so I decided on doing a portrait of my Grandpa, my mom's dad. He is a huge part of why I am an artist--he took me to my first art museum as a little girl, the Norton Simon in Los Angeles. I fell in love immediately. He is also one of the most Christ-like individuals I have ever met. If their was ever a child trapped in an elderly body, it is definitely my Grandpa. :)

As for the piece, for the first one I decided to do something simple but I used a medium I have used only once for an actual piece--marker. I used just 2 tones--black and gray. More than capturing exactness in his features, I wanted to capture his "likeness," or personality. The hardest part about the piece, was the only smiling photograph I could find of him, he was wearing sunglasses! So I had to use other pictures to get the eyes and kind of guess as to how they would look when smiles.

Things learned--marker is tricky, since if you mess up, too bad for you. I used pencil first and then went over it in marker to minimize errors, but still wish I hadn't gone so dark on his left eye. Also learned--a photograph of the art piece doesn't usually show what the piece really looks like. This one looks way better in real life. Maybe I'll try scanning and see if that helps.