Soft Like Summer Rain

During memorial day weekend, besides the traditional barbecuing and enjoying the gorgeous weather – I drew. Using soft pastels, I made 3 portraits from photos. I was thinking about drawing from life but everyone was too busy to pose.
The last and 4^th portrait I sketched with charcoals. I found the photo of a beautiful model girl in a Cosmopolitan magazine. She was advertising Vidal Sassoon. Because I mentioned the source of my reference photo and because I’m not making any money on it, I shouldn't have a problem posting it here (it's for educational purposes only).
I like how I left the tanned colored paper untouched so that it imitates the girl’s skin tone. Incorporating the color of the paper into the subject saved me a lot of time. I was simply drawing the shaded areas with black and the highlights with white.

I felt so guilty that I was drawing from someone else's photograph that I had to add something completely mine to this post. Wild hare charcoal painting from my own photograph. 

Pastel Finger Painting

This is the portrait of my friend's mom, done in soft pastels on colored paper. I was painting it from old black and white photograph. I'm pretty happy with the outcome especially I like her hair. I was painting them with my fingers and it was such a joyful experience. I like to paint more hair, maybe my dog -Shetland sheepdog will be my next model. See you soon.