Saturday, April 16, 2011

Mel

Mel

8x11 inch

Coloured pencils, pastels and pan pastels on Marine Plywood.


This portrait is of my son Ben's beautiful girlfriend Mel. The inspiration for this style of portrait is the stunning work of Bijan Djamalzadeh, better known as Sara Moon who's beautiful soft artwork I have admired for years. Unfortunately I find it really hard to get good scans of pink and so the pinks in the portrait are a bit brighter than they appear in the original portrait, but it is the closest I can get. I would like to start advertising commissioned portraits again, but would prefer to offer something a little more creative, rather than a straight reproduction of a photo and hence the motivation for a bit of experimentation with portraits.

7 comments:

Autumn Leaves said...

Ben's girlfriend is indeed a soft beauty, Karen. I love that cleft in her chin!

Sue Clinker said...

She certainly is beautiful and you've made a lovely job of this portrait - understated but very striking

Unknown said...

Thank you heaps Sherry and Sue - I do appreciate your wonderful feedback!!! :)

Unknown said...

What a beautiful girl. Love the softs colors.
Great job Karen.

Unknown said...

Thank you heaps Dors for your lovely words - have your finished your lion yet - I haven't seen it come through :)

Artoholic said...

Karen, this has sent me spinning back in time. The softness, the colours - such 70's imagery - just beautiful. Reminds not only of Sarah Moon but of Hollie Hobbie.

Gorgeous!

Unknown said...

Hollie Hobby!!! Now that does take me back LOL - thank you Cindy - just wish I could get these soft ones to scan better - the colours come out much more garish than they appear in real life :)