Portrait exercises and a mystery bird's nest...

I thought I would show you what I have been up to in the studio these days. Here are some of the portrait course exercises and the reference photos. My students are getting lots of practice in creating skin tones in coloured pencil!

This week I shall be starting a portrait of my neice Melissa. She was the model for the body parts pictures. This time it will be her whole face on the page! I shall post it as a wip, so stay tuned.

As for the next pictures, can someone enlighten me? The pictures are of a simple twig nest on our property. I never saw a bird constructing it or using it. Does anyone know what bird would create such a thing?

A big eye and coloured pencil classes...

Portrait course eye exercise, approx. 5" x 6"

coloured pencil on Stonehenge, copyright Teresa Mallen

Happy Halloween! Did my big eyeball scare you? Hopefully it isn't too ghoulish!

Here at Teresa Mallen Studio, November is portrait month. Over the next four weeks I shall be teaching a course on how to do portraits in coloured pencil. I have been having an absolute blast creating new exercises. I love it when a subject comes to life on paper and it is even more thrilling when it is a face.

This is a real nitty gritty course, chock full of fabulous info on how to avoid common drawing errors. There is also lots of practice in creating skin tones. The big eye is one of the exercises. There are so many mistakes made with the eye. Usually it is because we think we know what an eye looks like, but when it comes to drawing and capturing a likeness, never assume anything!

I shall share some of the other face parts next week. For now I shall leave you will some photos taken two days ago. Mother Nature got in an early Halloween trick as we have had a snow and ice storm. Now before you start thinking that here in Ottawa we must live in igloos and have no sun for nine months of the year - we are not that far north! We never get snow in October and often not in November either. So this snow will melt when it warms up next week.

My husband snapped this picture. I am in our backyard (decked out in one of his old coats) and no I am not raking snow. I was using the rake to get ice off of a lilac tree.


You might wish to scroll down to the October 18th post to see how this tree looked just a week and a half ago.


Remember the picture of one of my favourite spots? Well, here is how it looks now.

Forget the costumes and carved pumpkins...isn't Halloween just an excuse to eat candy? Enjoy! Just adding beauty to my life, right? :-)