Grey Widow - Portrait Sketch

When I have been thinking in thumbnails/prelim drawings and color studies for too long, I like to just sit down with a couple reference photos from my library as inspiration and do a little free-form oil sketching for an hour or two. One of my favorite things to do is just make a little portrait of someone pretty. Some of them turn out terrible, some of them turn out ok and sometimes I really like them and end up seeing something I can take furthur. I would like to accumulate a good-sized series of these to show at some point. But for now, here is one of my recent favorites:

Grey Widow
Oil on Panel
5" x  5"

Spectrum Live sketches

Even though it's already been weeks since Spectrum Live, it is still fresh on my mind. The people I met, the art I saw, the presentations I took pages of notes in... it was 3 days of inspiration packed joy for this little fantasy artist. I am now on vacation but I wanted to share a few sketchbook highlights from the weekend before May fades too much.

Playing around with adding color to a quick plane sketch. I need to get more involved in this sort of experimenting in my sketchbook.

This guy was keeping watch outside our window. How appropriate! I think we all got sketches of him.

Lauren Panepinto- Art Director and master legging wearer.She likes when artists put watermarks on their art for easy locating. Fun fact: Her pinterest is a black hole of awesome that will suck hours from your life and leave you wanting more.