Ashley the Great

I haven't posted for a couple of weeks because we have been in Cuba! This is a portrait of my great-grandaughter (yes! a perk of marrying an older man - he made me a great-grandmother. Look at her! I'll take it.)
When I got back and started going through my photos I was a little overwhelmed with where to start. So many beautiful images! So I pulled out this photo of her:

 and did this quick pencil sketch in my sketchbook:

I thought it might make a nice little portrait.

The technique I used is called grisaille. I started by using only black and white paint and once that dried I glazed colors over the top of it. 

Here she is!

     I don't know if I did this in a true grisaille style because I felt more like I was painting over the black and white rather than just glazing colors over the top. Oh well. Once she is dry and I am able to varnish and frame her, she will be on her way to Cuba to her parents' house.

I also want to share the portrait I painted, over ten years ago, of her father.

He was 11 years old when I last saw him (prior to this visit). I thought he was a wonderful and affectionate boy and he has grown into an amazing young man, willing to pose for me under a palm tree on the same beach. 

And . . . one last photo for this post (I'm sure I'll be posting more of Cuba as I work on paintings.) Probably my favorite of the whole trip. 

Me and my grandson.

Irish Roots

     It won't be long now until we leave for a large family vacation to my husband's native land, Cuba. This is something that we've been planning for months. I've been reading in Spanish, speaking Spanish, eating Cuban food, listening to Cuban music, saving money for Cuba, and buying gifts to take to Cuba. It's going to be an awesome trip to see family and hopefully explore a little more of that incredibly gorgeous island, (I was there once before in 2006) but for goodness sake! I have roots too! And not all of them are gray. Happy St. Patrick's Day to all and especially everyone whose name starts with an Mc or an O'.

Your's Truly,

 the former, Tracy McGlinch.

Dress Up

I seem to have a very strong desire to "perfect" this image. It is my fourth attempt at working on the idea.

For most of my adult life I've painted realistically. I always said I couldn't draw from my imagination if my life depended on it. If it wasn't set up in front of me to view, I couldn't get it on paper. When people wanted me on their Pictionary team I warned them that my drawing skills would be no better than anyone else's. And I was correct.

But I've always wanted to illustrate children's books and knew that unless I worked on the skill of drawing from my imagination, I would never be able to come close to making that a reality.

In 2011 my step-daughter Ashley (my personal cheerleader) bought me a sketch-a-day book for Christmas. That little book started to change everything for me. On March 4 2012 I drew this image in that sketchbook for the Illustration Friday word of the week - INTENTION: (Well, at least she had good intentions)

I was pretty proud of it at the time and thought "Hey! Now I can be of benefit to a Pictionary team!

Almost exactly a year later I felt that I had improved my skills and could do a much better version. I did this one for the Illustration Friday word of the week - PROTEST (the fish was definitely protesting).

And in 2015 I felt like an absolute expert and decided I could do so much better. Here's that one:

So there you have it.  The top image is where I am after 5 years of drawing while relying heavily on my imagination. I certainly use reference material in my process, but to be able to have done the top image 5 years ago I would have needed a little girl model, a happy dog, a curious cat (one that would allow me to put clothes on it and then pose nicely), and a fish that I would have had to put through way too much trama.

Have we all seen the last attempt of this image?

Probably not.

Victorian Tea

   
     There is something about this site for posting a blog that I like better than the new site I'm working on. So even though the last post here was called "Last Post Here" . . . it's not.

     This is a piece done for the SVS Learn class https://svslearn.com/ called "Draw 50 Things"     https://svslearn.com/classDetail/-KbmllbZT5dO6dI-6NGc

     The challenge was to do a complex piece incorporating 50 separate and identifiable items. I've been working on it for about 30 hours and it's done for now. I may pull it back out in a few months and see what I might do differently, but for now I'm very satisfied. Thanks, Will Terry!

WINTER

I've been working on illustrations for the four seasons and here's how WINTER is progressing. I started it in acrylics (below)

and that is where I will (before the end of the month) finish it. I like the more painterly look of the original but I turned to my digital paint program to work out some of the details. 

Edit from the future (2024): Click here to see what I ultimately came up with:

JANUARY

Happy New Year 2017!

     I love the fresh start of a new year. I like to sit and write down my accomplishments for the previous year and to list my goals for the coming one. I'm going to be setting up a website for myself where my blog and my portfolio can be seen in the same place and hopefully set up a small online store. This image may just become a card that you can purchase to wish your friends a happy 2018! 

     One of my goals is to post every Wednesday, so feel free to comment your displeasure if I fail at this. It will help keep me on my toes! Haha! 

     I would like to wish you all a safe New Year's Eve, and a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2017!