Amdall Gallery

Wow, has it really been another entire month since I’ve drawn anything? Sort of a surprising realization, because it feels like I was just writing about how I hadn’t drawn much lately. But that wasn’t last week…it was last month! Once that thought hit me that October was headed towards its Halloween conclusion, it was enough to push me into action. In my last post, I mentioned my intention to continue drawing occasionally to keep myself in the habit. Essentially, I don’t want to drift into another long period without art. So, why not keep myself rolling with one of my favorite subjects – my kids!

My oldest daughter started school this year, which has been pretty exciting. She struggled a bit at the beginning, because she wasn’t used to being away from both parents for such a long time. But she is a very social child, and seems to enjoy it now. She’s learning a ton in her Montessori school, and I love when she comes home and tells us all about what she learned. Right now, she’s totally preoccupied with the planets and our solar system, and with the parts of an apple. She colored this booklet that she’s very proud of, which shows the apple’s core, stem, seeds, etc.

Her teacher sent us a picture of our big kid looking at an apple, so I thought that would be a fun subject to draw. Here’s the final product:

After a month off from drawing, I expected some rust like last time…but surprisingly I didn’t find any. I jumped right in, and I think it turned out well. This definitely looks like our big kid, and I believe I did a pretty solid job of capturing the right perspective. It’s sort of a downward view, and that looks right overall. I think I could have done a better job on the shading/shadows on her shirt and jeans though. I’m not sure what happened there, but the shadows particularly in her shirt don’t look natural and probably needed a different color than the gray I used. Also, the apple looks pretty weird…definitely not very natural looking. I mean, you can tell it’s an apple, but I sure don’t want to eat it.

As usual, I’ve dropped a progression .gif below to show how this came together. I followed my usual process of: 1) graphite outline, 2) skin tones, 3) gray shading, 4) white blending, 5) hair, lips, eyes, 6) clothes, 7) fine darker details.

Next on deck, I’d like to do an updated solo drawing of my youngest kiddo. Will that be next week? Next month? We’ll see!