My Faves of January!

As a review of my first January 31-in-31, here are a few of my favorites!

Clockwise from upper left:
"Intent" (pastel, 6x6) on hold for the Austin Pastel Society Members Exhibition in March.
"Passing Stormclouds" (pastel, 14x14) available at the Carriage House Gallery.
"Chewy" (pastel, 8x8) also available at the Carriage House Gallery, along with
"Road Sketch #35" (pastel, 3x5)
"Frog #20" (pastel, 6x4) sold
and "Firebrand" (pastel, 12x12)

It was a real challenge to do the dailies so early in the year in a month usually reserved for resting, paperwork, and planning, but I'm glad I did, because who knows when some of these paintings would have been done otherwise!? I've resolved to at least paint more frequently this year than I did last year... that's as much as I can promise...



But for now I'll be taking a short rest from blogs and social media while I get ready for the San Antonio Rodeo, where I'll be in my 25th year drawing quick portraits from life (and now caricatures too!) Find me in booth c-415 on the floor of the Coliseum just down the stairs from the front entrance.
February 6-23. SARodeo.com

Day 9 - A Graduation

"A Graduation" (conte and pastel pencils, 10x8 inches, from client photo) sold

Another commission from last month. One of my favorite challenges. Her photo was actually printed on a metal diploma, in one of those dot matrix prints that are used in newspapers. I took a photo of the photo so you could see what I mean...

Your monitor or device screen might play havoc with the patterns on this image, but click it and zoom in! Weird!

My client was super happy to have this portrait more clearly drawn. It was the only photo she had of herself at that age.

See more of my pencil portraits at RitaKirkmanDrawings.com.

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A portrait commission and a New Goal for a New Year

"Bible Study" (16x12, conte and pastel pencils, from client photo) sold

Well, another year is gone and a new year begins again.

I was thrown off my usual rhythm in November when my schedule had me in Montreal for a workshop and various other things kept me away from doing my annual 30-in-30 November challenge. Then I was largely offline most of December, immersed in portrait commissions at a Holiday craft show that I've been doing for decades.

It's strange and powerful this hold that the creative urge has over an artist. It's too easy to let it all slide and get caught up in other daily routines, errands, paperwork, dinner chores, and then another day is gone and nothing new has been created. But the urge is still there, like a craving.

Commission work is wonderful and is awesome for paying the bills, but when 99% of it is from client photos, it's not creation, it's copywork. It takes skill, yes, and occasionally one gets to copy a lovely image with exciting light and a decent composition, like the one above, but what the client still wants in the end is an accurate copy of their photo.

After a month of commissions (and more yet on my schedule) I'm dying to dive back into my own ideas. The distractions and excuses are still loud: my database broke, the paperwork is overflowing, one of my hard drives is glitching, and the master closet is scary. But I have decided that the only way I'll be able to really get back to work is to tell someone I'm going to do it! (Because I'm a woman of my word.)

So here it is: I'm going to jump start my 2020 with a 31-in-31 month of posts!

Fine print: I will be using the Leslie Saeta set of rules for my 31-in-31, so if I don't paint a new painting every day, I'll be able to fill in with some of the portraits I did last month (starting with this one.) But I will be posting something that has not been posted before, every day this month!

Thanks for following along with my journey, stay tuned for more, and let me know what you think!

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PS: see more Detailed Pencil Portraits on my drawings site RitaKirkmanDrawings.com.

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