Shelly
Shelly
Meet Shelly!
Shelly the one and the only! Shelly is our favorite daughter. Actually she is our only daughter so there’s no competition :D.
I had this shot for a while. I took it on September 19th on the Chicago River boat ride with David. Remember David? But I was sitting on it for all this time because I have never done hair this complex and was afraid to start it. Now that I am beginning the last quarter of my project I thought – it is time. Time to at least try it – then I will know if I can do it or not. At the very least I would learn something.
It was damned complex big time even though I simplified it somewhat. But I didn’t want to simplify too much because it would’ve lost the wild unruliness of wind-blown curls. I wanted to preserve that, the image is very much in character.
#30 of 40. Graphite, Moleskine Cahier sketchbook
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Alex,
My oh my is Shelly ever grown up. I fondly remember the tickle fights I use to have with her in the office…
Oh and a great sketch, you captured the motion very very well.
Tom
Thanks for the comment, Tom! Where did the ten years go?… I remember that “Bring your daughters to work” day. I almost got a ticket on Willow road because we were late and I ran the red. Henry turned the lights in the server room for her, so she could watch green lights blinking on the servers. Great fun! Now she is working towards her Psychology degree and can legally go to bars.
awwww this picture is so epic. its a hundred times better than the photograph. i love you mama. haha i remember the tickle fights too 🙂
I love you too, baby-girl! I am soooooo happy you liked the portrait!
I’m honored your remember them Shelly. I don’t know how I have not managed to see you all these years. I still have a picture of last time I saw you in 2000. Now you are all grown up! I am glad that you are enjoying life and working towards some awesome goals. I look forward to seeing you when I am back in Chicago!
Hi Alex , I am thoroughly enjoying your blog and always look forward to new posts. The sketchbook project is wonderful to watch grow. Your work on those wild curls is excellent…kudos!!
Nice to meet you, Eldy! Thank you for stopping by. I went to your blog immediately and thoroughly enjoyed your photos and drawings. You are so good with fur! I am yet to learn to do that. Thank you so much for watching my Sketchbook Project, glad you liked how the curls turned out.
Made me think of the musical “Hair” immediately ! You must have patience abounding. Awesome, Alex. Glad to meet you, Shelly!
Thank you, Leslie! I didn’t see that musical, must look for it on DVD. It turned out that this hair wasn’t as much about patience as about wrapping my brain around the complexity of interweaving locks. It was like a puzzle: what goes under, what goes over, what is convex and sun-lit, what is concave and in a shadow. And then I had to remember what I meant to do in various places when I did the second and third passes for details. Whew!
It was just all that hair being flung around and it made me think of the opening song and the dancing and such…….
mama, dont watch hair, you’ll cry so hard you’ll never recover. but its still the best movie ever.
Oh, is it one of these totally great, but heart wrenching ones? Yea, I probably should stay away, can’t handle them.
OK….it is not fair that someone can have hair like that! It’s beautiful and magnificent and so is your drawing of it. It’s also not fair that someone with great hair is also so thin. I bet she’s beautiful too.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
(Hi Shelly, I think your mom’s portrait of you is fabulous and so is your mom!)
LOL! Too funny, Carol! But true! Yes, she is also beautiful, she looks a lot like Venus in Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. How more unfair it can get? Oh, I know – she is also 21! One day I will have to do a portrait showing more of the face.
Alex, your portait skills are amazing!
You are too kind, Casey! There is always room for improvement, as you know. I use this project to learn portraiture and to get better.
Alex, this is remarkable! I love the movement and texture and perspective and everything about it! I am blown away.
Aw, thank you so much, Linda! Of course, it helps to have a remarkable model like Shelly here. She does half the work for me being as beautiful as she is.