For years I thought that I was hopeless at capturing a likeness in a portrait. After taking a workshop from a premier colored pencil portrait artist (Ann Kullberg), I learned the all important principle, “Never draw a face smaller than an egg”. (not talking quail egg or hummingbird egg, preferably a goose egg)

This information helped, but I have never gotten comfortable or confident about capturing a likeness. I can spend hours making tiny adjustments, and in the end, I still have just drawn the guy’s cousin. 

When I asked a friend/blog reader/customer, let’s call her M, if she would like a print of the Sisters in the Orchard (2 girls drawn from the back, no faces involved), she declined, but then sent me a photo of a photo that she would like me to draw.

The original photo is about 3×3″. This version is blurry. I said that it was too hard because it was too small and too blurry.

She sent me the original so I could scan it, sharpen things, lighten and brighten and enlarge and SEE!

I really really like this person and never want to disappoint a friend. So, rather than sticking to my conviction that this is really too hard for me, I went with the principle of It Never Hurts To Try.

I scanned the photo and worked it over on the computer. Then I employed every tool that I have (not going to bore you with technicalities or give away any secrets—I save those for my drawing students).

The plan was to do Dad’s face first, because if I couldn’t make him look right, there would be no reason to continue.

I am more of a “precrastinator” than a procrastinator; in other words, do the hard thing before there is time to fret, backpedal, renege, or chicken out. 

I sent this to M, and now we will see if the drawing passes the recognition test.

I am incapable of perfection, but I can see right now a few adjustments that need to be made. When the face is only the size of an average chicken egg, every adjustment is the barest little pencil stroke, a gentle tap-tap with an eraser, a teensy blur and a smudge, all done under a huge lit magnifying lens.

Will I ever learn to say no to these types of jobs?

Prolly not. . . eternally optimistic in the growth of my skills, the continual triumph of hope over experience.