Relatives

I came across this photo somewhere, and the caption read "There's only one race—the human race." I loved how seriously the little boys were regarding the camera, and the way the one was holding the other so sweetly.

I didn't quite do either of them justice—the boy on the left looks older because I made his face too square when it had more baby fat (I'm used to taking OUT the fat on my adult models, to make them happy!), and his ears are too small. The boy on the right turned out smaller and a little more serious-looking than he was in the photo. Also, I started the faces too high on the page, so the tops of their heads ran into the spiral binding. But...making the attempt made me happy.

Uniball pen, Paul Jackson and Daniel Smith paints, in Bee sketchbook.

Time lapse

I honestly don't know how I went from June 16 to June 21 without a painting, but somehow the days passed and I didn't feel inspired, or ran out of time, or didn't even think of it while doing other things (although what they were I mostly couldn't tell you). But this painting is one I've had in mind for a while now (every time I look to the right out of my patio), and today was the day to put it on paper.

It doesn't, of course, capture everything I was hoping to reproduce. The chair is sitting up against the wall in the shadow of my giant jacaranda tree, the only evidence of that in this picture being the cast light and shade. The chair is a little smaller and therefore less imposing than I intended, and the bright greens on the climber rose were hard to catch in their contrast between bright light and dark shadow. I overworked the background foliage, but I did enjoy capturing the variable canopy (from untrimmed palm trees to giant ash to orange trees) in the vista beyond the wall.

Paul Jackson and M. Graham paints in Bee sketchbook.