kneaded76

I've been drawing ever since I can remember. Started off with cars and trucks during my school years into my late 20's. Never got real good at it, was just a past time for me. Always wanted to draw faces, but didn't have a clue how. Went to a bookstore with a friend one night (never been to one before) and seen a book by Lee Hammond on "How to Draw Lifelike Portraits from Photographs". I thumbed through it and was amazed, I had to have it! Bought the book and it all started from there. I couldn't do what the book showed on graphing out every part of the face, but it taught me how to shade and what tools I needed to do it with. I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a bunch of blending stumps and kneaded erasers. The pencil I used was just a plain 0.5mm lead pencil. Over several years, I practiced alot drawing famous people from pictures I would pull up and print off from Google images, I done quite a few! I would print them off in color, but eventually I would make them black and white. It really helps me with shading. I started showing some of the drawings to my friend (which I work with) that took me to the bookstore. He thought they were good and showed them to his wife that taught art and she said I had talent. Then, other people at my job found out and started asking if I would do drawings for them. I did a few, but never charged anything for them. I just loved doing it. I would even bring my drawing book to work and draw on my breaks! My passion for drawing kinda hit a bump after a couple years and I would take time off from it for months at a time, once for almost a year. I kept wanting to get better, but I just couldn't do what the book showed me correctly. Sometimes I could capture the look of the photo and sometimes I couldn't. Placement of features was always a challenge. This past year (2010), a friend saw some of my drawings on my facebook page and asked if I could do one of his Mother and nephew together. I hadn't drawn anything in a while so I told him I would try. To my surprise, it turned out great! I got excited all over again. After that, I kinda got swamped with co-workers wanting portraits done. People started paying me for them. I started accepting the money because they wouldn't take no for an answer. Started off with $10 a pop to $20....I started thinking, if I'm gonna get paid for these, I need to get better. I bought a couple more books that showed a different approach to feature placement. It showed doing a rough outline of the eyes, nose and mouth, then doing the outline of the face...all freehanded, no graphing. That worked for me. I was getting quicker this way. Around Christmas time I did about 10 or so drawings and made like $400! One lady paid me $80 for a drawing when all I asked for was $25. It was of her 3 sons in the military. I tried to give her some of it back, but she wouldn't accept it. Same thing with several others I did. Made $90 off two drawings for one guy, $40 from a couple more. It was crazy. Now, I have switched over to graphite and I love it. Much better than lead. Anyway, I have rambled more than I wanted to, so I'm gonna stop :-) That's pretty much it in a nutshell, thanks for reading!

Current Residence: Alexandria, TN
Favourite style of art: pencil drawings
Wallpaper of choice: scenic images, preferably with leafless trees