September 2019 – Watercolors by Lynn Holbein

Bouquet

We are in Chapel Hill for ten days with our granddaughter Lila while her parents both travel for work. The Farmer’s Market here is still selling beautiful summer bouquets.

Mom’s Room

Some sketches are valuable because they bring back memories.

My mother died in 2008. For the last few years of her life, she was bedridden in this room. I recently unearthed this sketch, and it all came flooding back.

I painted this in the workshop I took a couple of weeks ago, from a photo the teacher provided. It was challenging. A lot of time and erasing just to get the underlying pencil drawing. Doubt I would have had the courage to tackle it on my own.

Drawing a Face

“The most carefully studied 22 square inches in the universe,” is how the human face is described. Faces are intimidating to draw because we know them so well, and can detect the slightest distortion. But there are simple guides online to help you; here is one. The most surprising fact is that the eyes are at the halfway point between the crown of the head and the chin. Here’s my pencil sketch of a photograph I found on the internet. The placement of shadows shows that the light is coming from the right. It helps to have a good eraser!

Painting Children

One of the secrets of drawing people or other subjects is measuring one part of the body or subject against the rest. For instance, the average adult is seven heads tall. But a toddler is only four heads tall. This child is about five heads tall, so he looks maybe eight or nine years old. (For more info, click here.)

Painting People

All this week I’ve been stretching my mind seven hours a day trying to learn to paint human portraits from Eudes Correia, a fabulous painter and workshop leader. Luckily, we’ve been painting strangers from photographs, instead of people we actually know, but still my brain is sore from all the exercise.

A Painting of Your House

House portraits make great gift for yourself, or a birthday, anniversary or holiday present for others. They are a good memento of a past or current house, or a holiday cottage. Prints and notecards can be made for others in the family. Thank you, Amy, for letting me post my painting of your house. For more information, click here.