Skype Portrait

Yesterday I had a fabulous day, beginning with a 'Skype-date' with Calgary artist Verna Vogel.  She had the wonderful idea of sketching each other while online so I ended up doing two quick sketches of her (middle right photo) - the first one on the left page was quite caricature-ish but the second I felt captured more of her kind spirit.  Verna posted a bit about her experience creating Skype portraits here.

I studied portraiture years ago though I haven't done much since college but have been thinking of practicing again over the past few months.  In the new year my youngest daughter has asked if I will teach her how to draw so I thought we could work on 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain' by Betty Edwards together...it's a book that I began in college, had flipped through on occasion, and really, really want to read from cover to cover so I thought this was a great opportunity and it will be fun to do a project with my daughter while improving my own drawing skills once again.

One thing I noticed when I sketch with other artists is how uniquely everyone communicates in line and shadow.  It seems to be even more prominent in drawing than even in painting and when I mentioned it to Vera yesterday she said, 'Yes, just like a signature.' A perfect description.