DIGITAL PORTRAITS
Over the last couple of years I’ve been drawing portraits of people. The pictures started off as an exercise in trying to capture a likeness of a person and to try out new tools and programs. At first, I drew only portraits of my family and close friends—those people that would be kind enough to forgive my horrible mess-up.
Once I started to get the hang of things and was, for the first time, actually enjoying the process of creating an image from start to finish on the computer, I started selling portraits from my blog and facebook page.
I was really nervous to accept commissions for portraits, because I had never sold anything outside of a gallery setting, and hadn’t gone looking to sell my work before. Creating portraits was still pretty new to me, and I decided to run an experiment, where I would advertise for the portraits and make them for a total of two weeks and then stop and see if it was worth the time and effort—if people were into it, or if the portraits just blended in with all the other photos on the internet.
It worked!
It wasn’t a huge success, but the response was big enough to keep me going. I think I got something like 30 portraits in the first week or two, and it kept me busy between other jobs, drawing and messing around with colors, patterns and designs.
Since then, I’ve made hundreds of portraits and still make them on a weekly basis. It’s always exciting to find out what people are using their portraits for: birthday presents, anniversary presents, wedding announcements, Valentines Day gifts, family Christmas cards…crazy.
Like most people, one of my biggest goals in life is to make a living by doing what I love, and making pictures is at the top of that list. It’s still something I strive for every single day. I lose sleep thinking about and planning for it. I work all day for it. I read for it. I dream about it. I surround myself with people who strive for the same. Drawing, designing, telling stories. It’s how I learn and communicate.
Anyway, here are a few favorites:
These are brilliant! I don’t know how you do them from start to finish digitally, I always have to start with a sketch!
Aw, thanks Miriam. I still do most of my drawings on paper, including portraits, but this just represents my “Digital Portraits,” as I like to call ‘em. Technology is in such a strange state right now. Like, you can paint or draw on paper and canvas, but if you want to share it, you’re faced with scanning your image and sending out digital versions to the world. I guess that’s not entirely true, though, with Wacom’s new Inkling…