A quick sketch I did last night in Micron pen based on a Mary Cassatt monotype called Peasant Mother and Child (circa 1894).

I drew this from a book I borrowed from the library called MARY CASSATT: Prints and Drawings from the Artist's Studio. I loved seeing her prints and drawings, but the text in this book is like an auction catalogue. It gives the dry run down on which prints have foxing, which ones are brittle, which ones have the corner turned down (and it will specify which corner!)...so that is a little too much information about the condition of the paper and not really enough about the artist herself.

But I did enjoy practicing a bit drawing from some of the images. Anytime I try to replicate or base anything on a work of art by a great artist, I find a new appreciation for him or her. Mary Cassatt's artworks look basic on the surface, but there is such great mastery of her subject that is hard to explain here. Her artworks have such a gentle mother's touch.

I have updated this blog post to include the link (click on Emily Keyes' name) for her Memorial Fund.

The world can be pretty depressing. It's hard not to be effected when we turn on the TV and hear about a hostage situation in a high school in Colorado. We're even more saddened to hear that the 16 year old young lady Emily Keyes has died. What a terrible and senseless tragedy. Keep watching a little longer and within minutes you'll hear about war deaths, hatred, murders, gangs, the economy, gas prices, people starving in the world...really the list could go on and on of all the bad things that after awhile, seem like too much to handle. I have to turn off the news to protect my health. I try to remember that for everything bad we hear about, there are good people and good things going on in the world, but the media knows that although we hate to hear these bad things, it's mainly those bad things that intrigue us.

I recently re-read an article by Virgil Elliott, an artist and teacher from California. The article is in The Portrait Signature,[Volume 4, 2000] the publication by the American Society of Portrait Artists, and is about Artemisia Gentileschi, (1593-1652) one of the first women of portraiture who had a lot of trauma from her teenage years to overcome. She was raped as a teenager by a painting teacher. She cut her attacker with a knife in her effort to escape and the perpetrator dragged her good name through the mud. Her artwork shows strong emotions, many depicting themes of historic and Biblical stories with female heroes, such as Judith and her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes. I think you can figure out why there is no body mentioned attached to the head. "Excuse me, ma'am, but there's a severed head in your basket." (gulp!)

The reason I went into all of this is so I could quote an extremely powerful paragraph in the article. (see, I did have a point LOL)

"The emotional content is precisely what makes the difference between a competently painted picture by a well-trained painter, and a masterpiece. The best artists have always, and will always, put something of their own psyche, their own personal intensity, into their work, and it is that quality, strongly expressed, which connects with the sensibilities of the viewer and registers its impression indelibly and unmistakably upon them. These experiences, both positive and negative, serve to bring out that instensity and give great artists their unique identity, and their work its power. Thus the most trying ordeals, and the effects of these trials and struggles will inevitably have on the artist, can be the genesis of something postive, and perhaps something great, when channeled into art."

This might just be the greatest paragraph I've ever read. It is certainly true with me, I think that my Memorial Eagle artwork has an even greater intensity because I was so utterly shocked and enraged while I was creating it. I drew it while watching CNN's reporting of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. You'll probably notice that the American Eagle looks like he's going to avenge the deaths of innocent Americans, because those were my emotions at the time.

I have been doing some SEO 'fixerups' on my website and I found out whyI rank so highly on Yahoo's search engine (#1-3 for pencil portrait as a search phrase) but I'm ignored mostly by Google. (sniff)

I found out some new stuff (probably just new to me): Google apparently ranks sites that have more than one URL pointing to it really low, as if it's duplicate content. This is their way of disregarding those sites that buy up tons of URLs to just point them to their pages upon pages of duplicate affiliate links (you've seen those sites, I'm sure). I personally hate those types of websites so I'm glad Google does this.

I have my site on Tripod so there is one URL for that. Then I get a domain name through Tripod as part of the deal, so I have a url for that: http://pencil-portrait-drawing-artist.com
(it's so long because I just picked it out for it's keyword-iness.

Then of course I had www.darladixon.com pointing to it too.

I had a couple of other old URLs that I didn't wantto go to waste, so I thought it was common sense to point them there too. Big mistake!!!

I have someone helping me with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and we came up with the idea to point www.darladixon.com to my blog (people can still find my art site easily from there, so I don't have to reprint all my business materials). I also pointed any of the miscellaneous URL addresses to the blog. So now if you want my blog, all you need is http://darladixon.com and if you want my art website, it's http://pencil-portrait-drawing-artist.com ... but for ease of use, you might want to go to the blog with the shorter URL and then click over to my art website.

Also if you have some sort of 'invisible' site hit tracker on your website, Google considers that a 'no-no'...any hidden text or coding will drop you down. I had statcounter as invisible coding. I also had sitemeter and I removed it to get rid of the tacky buttons, plus the SEO lady says she knows of some site tracker things that are free and won't hurt search engine ranking, so when I get those I'll be sure to share them with you.

Darla
This is too much thinkin' for a Saturday morning.
http://pencil-portrait-drawing-artist.com
(that's too long to type, I never meant to promote that url!)

I added some recommended books on how to draw in pencil to my website - LINK

I also added some art supplies. - LINK.

They are affiliate links, but they are also a great way of showing the supplies that I think are a good investment. Sometimes it helps to just know what something looks like. I can tell you about a 'kneaded rubber eraser' but it sure helps if you can go and see it. Of course, you can buy many of the products anywhere. Sometimes you can get better prices on art supplies if you look in the drafting area in your office supply store.

I was tagged back in February by Meme and I'm finally getting around to answering it.

4 jobs I've had:

J.C. Penney Christmas help lackey
Aerospace firm summer help lackey
Library lackey
Bookstore lackey

4 movies I could watch over and over:

Raising Arizona
Sound of Music
Austin Powers (the first one)
Wizard of Oz

4 places I've lived:

Savannah GA
Sterling Heights MI
Stone Mountain GA
Snellville GA

4 TV shows I love:

Father Ted
Mission Organization/Clean Sweep types of shows
Cash in the Attic
That's Clever! (formerly Crafters Coast to Coast on HGTV)

4 places I've vacationed:

Disney World, Orlando FL
Amelia Island, FL
Chattanooga TN
Dallas TX

4 of my favorite dishes:

Pizza (well it's served on a dish shaped cardboard thing so let's consider it a dish and keep that amongst us, shall we?)
Lasagna
Tuna casserole (getting a bit tired of it though)
Mexican whatever, I just order by number LOL

4 sites I visit daily:

http://www.blogger.com
http://www.sitemeter.com
http://www.etsy.com
http://www.gmail.com

4 places I'd rather be:

I vant to be alone
With my feet up sipping an ice tea
Antique shopping
Art supply shopping

4 bloggers I'm tagging:

Jan who sells Top Line Creations Scrapbooking materials
Ashley who sells Discovery Toys
Cindy the new mommy
Andrea who paints and writes

Stipple - Pointillism - 'Hedcut' - dot portraits

I have done 2 portraits so far in this style.The latest one I did is of Martin Luther King Jr. This style of portrait is often called a 'hedcut,' the style was popularized by the Wall Street Journal's newspaper portraits, but it's called stipple or pointillism.

You can do this same drawing technique by sight or you can get a little help from the computer. Some might call it 'cheating,' but believe me, the computer doesn't put all those millions of dots in for me! The computer just simplifies and speeds things up. Have you heard the saying that to use one's heart AND head is what makes an artist?

What I did was used my graphics program to give the reference photo a high level of contrast. Print out two versions of the altered photo - one with the high contrast, and another one normal.

Now what you're going to do is use the high contrast one for laying down the basic shapes. Cover the back of the print out with 4B, 6B, or 8B graphite from your pencil (you want a dark, soft lead for this)

Use painter's tape or any low-tack tape to adhere the print out graphite side down onto the paper you'll be drawing on. Sketch over the printout's main lines with a 4H pencil. Be careful not to press in too hard or you will create ridges in the paper.

Outline the darkest areas and write DK for 'Dark' in those sections. Find the tones that are middle toned and write "Med" in them for 'Medium' after you have outined them. Then look for the next lightest areas and outline those. No need to mark them, if they're not marked, then you know they're the lightest areas before you get to white.

Once you have gone over the image transfer process in this way, carefully remove the print out from the art paper.

Now bring out the better print out of the photo and fill in the darkest areas first, using a Pigma Micron or Pitt pens. Then use medium tips, then the finest tips for the lightest areas. The size of the tip you use will depend on the size of the image you are working on, but in general, the closer the dots are to each other, the darker that area will appear. Once I've gone over the entire image, I then pay special attention to the lines, dimples, wrinkles, or miscellaneous features and make sure they are included.

The official Wall Street newspaper ink portraits are 3 inches by 5 inches. They have a team of 6 artists on staff to create them. In a rush situation like a death of a famous person, sometimes they can get them done in as little as 2 hours, but most of the time it takes much more time to complete these. The one of Martin Luther King took me several hours of nervous dotting, and it's a 5"x7", so if you decide to try this, I think 3x5 is pretty small space to work in for a beginner, but 8x10" is so large that all the dotting will drive you crazy, but 4x6 or 5x7 is just about right.

Need paper and the appropriate pens for this art project? Check out: LINK
Please send me a photo or a scan of your creations, I'd love to see what you make!

Related Pointellism portrait Links:
Buy this portrait from me on Etsy.com
Order your own
Wall Street Journal Hedcut Effect

Want to stay home with baby?

A friend emailed me. She's dealing with a struggle that a lot of working moms do - wanting to stay home with her baby but afraid to not have the paycheck.

I think if a lot of moms would 'crunch the numbers,' they might find that it actually makes more sense to be home. You may be seeing a paycheck, but such a large portion is disappearing with taxes and childcare it may not be worth it.. a big thing that I think a lot of people miss is that although you're not seeing the paycheck, your expenses drop down really low , so that helps balance it out a bit - here's my list LOL

# 1: of course you care more about your kids more than even the most loving child care provider on earth, just because you're their mom, and that's not a small thing.
From birth to kindergarten age is really a very small stretch of time.

# 2: IRS taxes the 2nd income heavily (if the Fair Tax ever passes, this might not be an issue anymore - www.fairtax.org ).

# 3: Working at home, I hardly need to buy gas.

# 4: Super low wardrobe expense: Jeans and Tshirts are mostly all I need. Occasionally I need to wear something nicer for a networking meeting or to meet a client, but that's only about once a month so who knows or cares if I wear the same nicer outfit? Paying $5-$10 for pantyhose that get a snag in them within 10 seconds of putting them on is mostly a thing of the past. My feet are enjoying my cheap Payless tennis shoes.

# 5: Gifts for co-workers or having to pay into the job 'gift pool' is a thing of the past.
(also no more co-worker's kids fundraiser expenses).

# 6 Lunch expense goes down...well even working at home, I need to eat...but there isn't as much expense as the daily or weekly lunch out a restaurant. What I eat at home for lunch is probably $1-$3 per day (x7=$7-$21/week) versus 7 days eating out at $6 (if I was lucky and got a cheap lunch) = $42/week. I always had the fantasy that I'd take my lunch and eat at work, and sometimes I did, but the reality was, I just had to get out of that place - (no matter how nice the place was).

There might be some more benefits to working at home if you think about it. I'm not getting rich over here, but business is definitely doing better and it's much less stressful. But for our family, it was a lifestyle choice. Be prepared for change and to be more frugal.

Just watch out for work-at-home jobs that are doomed to failure - http://mlm-thetruth.com/ can help you separate what might be a real work at home opportunity from dangerous pyramid schemes.

Some call it stipple, some call it pointillism, some call them hedcuts. I call it about 3-4 hours of work to put all those dots in by hand in ink but it's a heck of a lot of fun. This was designed and drawn totally from my imagination.

The term 'hedcut' comes from the famous illustration portraits in the Wall Street Journal.

Website

I will always remember September 11, 2001.

Portraits Drawn Free of Charge for Families of Fallen Military Personnel

TO FAMILY MEMBER OF FALLEN MILITARY:

If you had an immediate family member die in Iraq/Afghanistan/War Against Terrorism and would like one FREE pencil portrait done from photographs of the loved one, please just email me at darla.dixon@gmail.com to make a request and for instructions of where to mail reference photos.

There is no catch, except I would like the request to be made only by the parent, spouse, or immediate family member of the person. These 9"x12" or 11"x14" portraits will be completed on a first-come-first-serve basis.

For more information, please visit this page of my website: LINK

I was going through photos on the computer tonight and somehow I didn't share this cute one. I don't know if you can see the drool dripping off his chin or not. This kid gets up this happy usually. He is rarin' ta go as soon as he wakes up.
I need to draw his portrait (I've drawn at least one of all my kids) but he has so many cute pictures it's really hard to choose which one to draw from. This one would be hilarious as a drawing though!

It's very exciting to see my pencil illustrations set up on a book cover once again. This is the new book coming soon called What Really Happened In Ancient Times; a Collection of Historical Biographies.

The images of Eve and Daniel (bottom) were mirrored (flipped) so that they would face inward toward the title of the book. I received the text proof from the publisher today and I'm looking forward to reading it. If you would like to pre order a copy of this book, please visit www.bramleybooks.com

You can also order the previous book - What Really Happened During the Middle Ages (click this title to see it on Amazon.com

For more information:
Knowledge Quest, Inc.
www.knowledgequestmaps.com - try their maps free!
www.bramleybooks.com - they are looking for authors for our upcoming book
www.homeschoolblogger.com/knowledgequest
Call the publisher toll free at 1.877.697.8611

I have been thinking about drawing hands
- what makes a good drawing of a hand and what makes a drawing of a
hand not so good? I have a pencil drawing that is a good
demonstration of both - one of the baby's hands is realistic, but the
other one looks flat. I am very pleased with most of this artwork,
but I really regret the way I drew that hand. I didn't do a lot of
highlighting of it, because I didn't want it to distract from the
sweet baby, but just because the drawing of the hand is weak, it
draws my attention every time now.

Like so many other things we try to draw, our
own mind can sometimes get in our way. If we concentrate so hard on
"I'm drawing fingers" or, "I'm drawing a hand," we put a lot of
pressure on ourselves to perform. Instead of thinking in terms that
stress us out, I think it helps a lot to think of them as simple
shapes...remember Lincoln Logs? Well fingers aren't that perfectly
round shaped, but they're close. From knuckle to the joint is one
log, from that joint to the next joint is another little 'log,' and
from that joint to the end of the finger is yet another 'log.'

Think about the shapes - break the hand down into just simple shapes
so you will find it less intimidating.

Look for all the shadows and the opportunities to create a sense of
depth by taking advantage of the light and shadow. If you are working
from a photograph, turn the photo and your paper sideways, or even
upside down and work on it that way - it tricks your mind a little
bit, so you pay more attention to the shapes.

Look at drawings of hands by other artists so you will become more
familiar with different ways hands can be portrayed in art. Getting
the shapes right is the first step - after you have gotten to the
point of being more comfortable drawing hands, then you move on to
put in the fine details (fingeranils, age spots, wrinkles, veins).
You can also draw your own hand for practice. Here are some books
that can help you in greater detail to learn how to draw hands.