After giving up on a tiny portrait in pencil, I returned to something that I can succeed at drawing.
Then I added color.
Next, I started the second commissioned pencil drawing for the same customer.
If you need a little pencil drawing of a face and it happens to look just like an orange grove, I can do this for you.
The agreement with my customer M was that I would try to capture a likeness in her Dad’s face. If I was unable to do that, we would understand and accept that this job is beyond my ability. It is EXACTLY the kind of drawing job that I have struggled with for many years, and finally decided to stop accepting commissions for.
BUT, M is my friend and a great communicator, and I want to please her. I also like testing myself from time to time to see if I have improved.
Attempt # 3 was a reject.
Attempt #4 was a reject.
Attempt #5 was sent to M with this: “If this one isn’t right, then I am crying “uncle”, accepting the fact that this is beyond my ability, and throwing in the towel. (Jeopardy music in the background as the drawing awaits its fate. . .)”
I recognized that I was falling into the trap of trying to do the impossible. I thought that I had chosen a large enough piece of paper to include the whole scene with faces large enough to draw, but I was wrong. The most minute change, a slight dab of the eraser, half a pencil point width change, using HB instead H or H instead of 3H (those are pencil hardness/darkness indicators), a vague variation in paper texture. . . all I am doing is tickling the paper and hoping something works.
So, for once in my career of accepting challenges that are beyond my ability to execute well in a manner that pleases the customer, I am willing to quit on this one and STOP SAYING YES TO THESE TYPES OF COMMISSIONS.
Nope. Didn’t look like M’s dad. Bye-bye, drawing.
P.S. M, it is not your fault. It is mine for saying yes when I knew better. Thank you for your patience and for the opportunity to try one more time and then finally accept reality.
See? I have tried and tried and tried with these tiny faces in the past:
More Can’t See ‘Ems This one worked because the customer didn’t know the people personally.
Custom Pencil Drawings Another one where the customer said a likeness wasn’t necessary.
P.S. I didn’t cry. It is just a figure of speech. Thank you for your concern.
As I struggle along on this pencil drawing commission of faces that are too small for me to capture a likeness, you get to see the progress.
This is the original photo.
This is my first attempt at capturing M’s Dad accurately.
This is a scanned and enlarged version of the faces.
Here is the second version of my drawing.
And finally, so you will understand what I am working with, here is the drawing with a ruler.
Phooey. The inch marks don’t show. M’s dad’s face is 1-3/4″ high. That’s all.
That’s all I can stand of this today. I will go pull some weeds, because that doesn’t require perfection.
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.
The orange grove commissioner (doesn’t that sound like a job title?) chose view A.
She would like 2 drawings of the same scene, sort of.
I asked if she wanted the mountains visible toward the north end of her view—Alta Peak, Moro Rock, Castle Rocks—or the mountains toward the south end of her view—Sawtooth, Homer’s Nose.
She said one of each, beginning with the south end, so that if she changes her mind and decides on sketch B, C, or D, then she still has her first choice mountains.
Let ‘er rip, tater chip. (Or perhaps, “Gentlemen, start your engines”.)
First, the layout. What height for the distant mountains, where do the rows belong, get the hills right for Pete’s Sake!, where shall the main wind machine go…? Many little decisions, but not too much fussy detail in this landscape.
I looked at several photos of the mountains and foothills, enlarged Sawtooth from how it appeared in the photos provided by the customer, and tried to get in enough texture in the hills to be recognizable without actually counting boulders.
This is a combination of believable scribbling and very close scrutiny underneath a magnifying glass to make sure that no scribbling is actually noticeable… no loop-dee-loops or Ms & Ws (ems and double-yous look like rick-rack) or scritchy-scratchy lines are allowed to show. So the scribbling isn’t as random or casual as it sounds.
Never mind. This is how my drawing students and I talk about drawing. You might need to be present for a demonstration, or more likely, you wouldn’t care. Just be polite, ‘kay?
The bottom right corner will have closer leaves and oranges, with a touch of color.
I love these types of pictures—orange groves, foothills, mountains.
I have two new pencil commissions, both of orange groves with foothills and mountains in the distance.
I love this stuff! (Big happy face emoji could fit here but this is a blog, not a text, and we speak English here, not hieroglyphics).
Here are 4 ideas for the customer to choose from or develop into something else. Good thing she knows that I can draw.
She didn’t specify whether she prefers horizontal or vertical, nor did we establish which part of the mountains she prefers: Alta Peak with Castle Rocks or a bit farther south to show Sawtooth and Homer’s Nose.
She did say that she wanted a little bit of color.
You probably have a clear favorite but it is the customer’s opinion that will prevail.
Mr. and Mrs. Customer requested a few more leaves and oranges to extend into the margins. I did a bit of subtle extensions, then sprayed, colored, and signed it.
This is the closest I am able to get to perfect.
It is time for me to really study this pencil commission. The pencil drawing needs to be perfect, because the next step is to spray it with a fixative, to prevent smearing when I add colored pencil to a few areas.
Mr. Customer asked for clouds, so I decided some wispy types would add texture, variety, and interest without becoming too busy. Everything else is highly detailed, so the sky needs to be somewhat visually restful.
All this remains to be inspected:
After I addressed all those items, I scanned the drawing, cleaned up the scanner messes (it ALWAYS leaves spots, and the paper color scans as gray), and emailed it to Mr. and Mrs. Customer for their final approval.
More will be revealed in the fullness of time, or as my dad used to say, “Time will tell”. Meanwhile, I will continue to. . .
What’s my point? Not the point of my pencil. The point of all this careful drawing and explaining is to make everything in this custom pencil drawing believable.
I have added a ladder to the wind machine, smoothed the sky, and begun the lower leaves and oranges on the bottom left.
Have a look at the 2 little girls, the way I see them under the giant lighted magnifying glass. They truly are almost impossible to draw and hardly show up. But they will have color on them at the end, so they will be more visually significant.
Building up the foliage is tedious; some might say “restful”; others might call it “zen”. The tedium is alleviated by the continual need to check the sizes of the leaves and fruit, thinking about where they are landing on the rows of diminishing sizes. 
I also worked on the ground a bit. I want it to look real and as always, believable. Usually within an orchard, there are many dead leaves, broken sticks, and dropped fruit. So, I will put some of this in but be careful to not have it too noticeable, because it isn’t the point. What is the point??
Believability!
This is a commissioned pencil drawing, custom art, a specific job as requested by a customer. (All that is in case you are only tuning in right now and missed the previous posts leading up to this).
The most difficult part of this drawing is the children. I found photos of children walking from the back, and then put together various elements from these photos to depict something that doesn’t actually exist. The youngest child that this drawing is supposed to represent is not yet walking. By the time she is walking, the other child will be older (duh) than she currently is. Hence, by guess and by golly.
I started here because if this is impossible, there is no point in continuing.
The customer said it was fine. No, that’s not what he said, but I decided that is what he meant.
Then I photographed it with a pencil so the size could be understood.
After that, the mountains, and beginning the distant trees.
All this was done at the dining table in the house. I started this on the snow day, because the wood stove puts out better heat than the little wall propane heater in the studio.
Lighting was a bit of a challenge, so toward the end of the drawing session I turned on the flashlight in the phone to use as a spotlight. This made it possible to work close and make precise leaves and oranges in the upper right corner.
P.S. The customer’s wife weighed in at the end of the day and had a very valid and helpful suggestion to make the smallest girl look younger. I believe this will be a lengthy series of blog posts as I bumble along in new territory of drawing little people without benefit of photos in a size that is ridiculously small. It will all be worth it, because this drawing will be ridiculously perfectly darlingly cute, a brilliant idea! (Plus, there will be some added color)