Art Day!

We had a somewhat rare treat this weekend: the husband had an actual Saturday/Sunday weekend off! It does happen on a regular, albeit infrequent, basis. I don't know why, but a Saturday and Sunday off together always feels more special than two weekdays off together. I take my days off when he has his days off, so I think it makes me feel like a member of "normal" society, someone who gets to work M-F. (I realize that this isn't a lot of people's "normal" but it still feels awfully nice!)

We had company with us for Friday and Saturday, but they headed home this morning, so we designated today as "Art Day." This is one of the many reasons that I adore my husband: he suggests a day full of art as the ultimate relaxation/date day for us.

For my project I settled on a portrait inspired by Lindsey Bugbee's work over at The Postman's Knock (http://www.thepostmansknock.com/how-to-create-a-crayola-crayon-portrait/), which I found through that marvelous social networking medium: Pinterest. Her work is done using wax crayons, but all I had was a pack of 24 Crayola crayons that didn't have quite the color range I was looking for, so I busted out my stash of Prismacolor colored pencils. (My Mom and Dad gave me those pencil crayons many, many years ago, and they remain one of my very favorite art supplies!)

The husband (CW) and I had gone on a lunch date the other day to one of our local favorite Thai restaurants, and our sushi looked so pretty that I pulled my camera out of my purse and started snapping photos. In the middle of my photographic frenzy, I took a picture of CW that I really liked, and I decided it would make a suitable subject for this portrait experiment.

So, I began with a nice light pencil sketch:

(Sorry for the not-great photo quality, but I really was trying not to use to heavy a touch with the pencil!)

Next step was to ink it in. I reduced the saturation on the original photo (so it became black & white) and boosted the contrast so I could see the light and shadow clearly.

And then came the colored pencils. While I normally would be quite concerned with trying for "photorealism," this time around I just wanted to emphasize broad swaths of color in order to integrate it nicely with the sharply defined areas of shadow. Here is the finished product:

There are a few little finicky issues I have with it, but overall I think I'm fairly content with how it turned out. And CW seems to approve, so that's a bonus!