Heidi's grandparents

I love drawing people. It's a fact. I recently saw an episode of NY Ink, where one of the tattoo artists was feeling burned out from tattooing portraits- I understood his feelings, as I went thru something similar not too long ago with drawing portraits. But I really enjoy people watching, which in turn makes me really enjoy people drawing, and thus the cycle begins again.

Heidi recently contacted me about doing 2 drawings of her grandparents, both have recently passed. I don't particularly like the circumstances that surround the reason for the request; but I do feel humbled that someone puts their trust in me to draw someone they love as a memorial for them to cherish for years to come.

Yes you did read that the request was for 2 drawings, yet I'm only posting one. Part of that is because I haven't received approval for the second drawing yet, and the other part is, the second drawing, while it's nearly identical to this drawing posted above...there are some differences. It's really hard to draw the same image twice. #1- there's the burn out factor. Sometimes I feel like "I already drew this", so it's hard to put pencil to a clean sheet of paper just to do the same motions again...and then #2- the person wants 2 drawings of the same photo- which is easy in some respect (you've done one...how hard can the second be?), but one wrong stroke of the pencil can make the entire image look completely different from the first. I don't think the second image looks completely different, but if I look closely I can tell it's not the same drawing (which is a good thing, I think). I think separately they look good, both resemble the original photograph...but they do not completely resemble each other. Either way, I hope that both drawings are received well. It was great to get back into the swing of things. There was just something so right about holding that pencil. :)

Try to stay cool everybody! This summer has been a scorcher!