Pen & Ink Renderings and My Tipping Point

I've been pretty stressed lately. That meant that I needed to do a little art. I decided that I would like to try to create some sort of portraits of my family members each year. This year I am doing them in pen and ink.

I had planned to do something more unusual than this, but I am not sure I am going to. With this in mind I had prepped a canvas by covering it with Golden's light molding paste. It is one of my favorite painting surfaces. However, now that I have the rendering close to finished, I don't think I want to risk ruining it with color.

I don't think that my drawing is actually done. Ethan's eyebrow is not right and I did not manage to capture his dimple properly. Ellie tells me that it is a good drawing, but it does not really look that much like Ethan. I will endeavor to fix it.

This is the photo that I used as inspiration.

Ellie has been enjoying the new ink, too. I appreciate many qualities of her designs, such as the steady, even lines, the way that she can replicate the same curve many times (and without the aid of a tool), her design itself, etc.

I needed to do this art in part because I have reached my tipping point - I am maxed out and stressed. I am crazy busy at work teaching six classes, with four different preps. We also just finished giving the ACCESS test which is a four part standardized English language proficiency test. (This meant that all of the time that I was not in front of kids was spent testing or prepping for giving the test.Additionally, it meant that all of the stuff I usually do during my planning, such as planning, grading, communicating with parents, etc. happened after school was through for the day. I am usually done around 4:00 pm, but during that week the janitor had to make me leave the building more than a few times.) Ethan was out on a field job suffering through snowy, cold, difficult conditions while sick with that 4-6 week flu that is so prevalent here right now. Don is doing well, but still in the hospital. There is a lot to worry about. Doing art temporarily distracts me and relieves some of my stress.