Louise Brooks....

Louise was born on this day in 1906. Here's a colored pencil portrait I did of her last year.

They Had Faces....

A Belated B-Day Tribute to Clara Bow...

My fave silent film actress, Clara Bow, first dubbed "The Brooklyn Bonfire" and then "The IT! Girl" woulda been 104 this past July 29th. I was out of town and couldnt do a b-day post until today. Instead of the usual pic assortment, I decided to post some of the graphite or Colored pencil portraits I've done of Clara over the last several years.

This last one is still my fave of them all. The most recent one is 3 years old and I know I could do a much better job of it now so I'm hoping to do a new Clara Colored pencil drawing before the year is out. I miss drawing her!

New Artwork

This past week I took a much-needed break from my "Billiard Bitches" (as they have come to be affectionately known) and colored pencils and did a graphite piece, a portrait of my 'art' friend Brandy Perez (http://brandyperez.blogspot.com/) . Both she and her husband like my work and seemed pretty excited at the idea of me doing her portrait! She is quite a beautiful woman with a unique profile and HUGE eyes so it was fun to try and capture all that on paper!

Tech stuff: It's on a piece of 18x24" strathmore 64lb tinted charcoal paper, done with derwent 2H and HB pencils with white charcoal pencil for the highlights. I started it on Friday night, worked right through the weekend and finished it monday. It's a pretty good likeness I think, and I had fun designing the earring and playing with the hairstyle a bit, but that braid, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, that was tough!!!

Anyway, it's back to the "bitches" now . . .*sigh*

edit: I worked on this a bit last night, fixing some problems with the nose and overall profile that just bugged me too much to leave alone. This is an updated scan 2/23/09.

Star Wars weekend . . .

This blog will be pretty much about anything i feel like, hence the title.

So I'm chained to my art table again (self-imposed exile i call it) this weekend and I decided to play all the Star Wars films (in order of course!) while I was working . . . Episode III is more than half done and I am struggling with rendering a leather jacket in colored pencil, all the while the rain has been pounding down on my metal roof . . . good times, good times!

anyway, I thought i'd share a piece of my own artwork so here's a portrait of silent film legend Louise Brooks I did earlier this year. All colored pencil on museum board. Brooksie was a mesmerizingly beautiful and gifted actress, a fascinating personality and certainly posessed a magnificent profile! I've been a fan of hers for about a decade now but this year I really have become borderline obsessed with drawing her or, at least, attempting to!
The whole time I worked on this I had the old Kino video version of "Diary of a Lost Girl" playing on my little Tee-vee next to my art table over and over for inspiration. A really great silent film, although certainly not the "Feel Good" picture of 1929! I love the score on that older version so it's great to listen to even when i am immersed in my work.