Jerry 2012
My Dad reached a milestone last year. He turned 60. I decided to sketch a portrait of him based on a photo I had taken a few years prior as a gift. Now, I've finally gotten around to posting the finished work here. Only took me nine months.
I wanted to try something new with the piece. I came up with the idea of making it a dual layer portrait while working with Photoshop one night. The first layer is shadows and midtones in pencil on a piece of white paper and the second layer is highlights in white conté on a sheet of translucent vellum. The result was an image with more depth than I had hoped. I loved the way it turned out and my Dad was thrilled when he opened it.
Both my parents were always very supportive of my choice to pursue a creative career. They expressed to me that if they had felt more free to become anything they wanted to be when they were younger that they would have been more creative; my Dad an actor, my Mom a photographer. I consider myself lucky to have had that vital encouragement to be anything I wanted. Thinking about it now I've sought out a similar type of attitude in my group of friends; the vast majority of my favourite people are creative, passionate, supportive and inspiring. I've chosen to surround myself with these kind of people and I'm constantly reminded why that was a wise move. It's an unintentional, subconscious collaboration at times. It provides me with a muse for all occasions and motivation to be more interesting and multi-faceted. I highly recommend seeking out the most awesome people you can possibly find. All three of the portraits posted on this blog are of loveable, amazing people with a personal connection to me. That fact made completing these pieces all the more enjoyable and kept me eager to continue drawing on a more regular basis.
