Portraits

I used graphite, colored pencil, watercolor, or acrylics for human portraits. God just used dust.

"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Genesis 2:7 KJV

Portrait Of Jenna

©2022. Nancy Cupp. All rights reserved. 8 x 10 inch colored pencil

My art student had been doing several self portraits on her own, and wanted to see how I would draw her, so she asked me to do a portrait of her.

Daisy

©2009 Nancy Cupp,
all rights reserved..
11”x14” Watercolor on
Arches 300 lb. cold press paper

Daisy's Story
I was blessed to be in one of Mitchell Tolle’s watercolor workshops for a whole week. I didn’t bring along any pictures to paint from, so Mitchell was kind enough to let me borrow one of his own granddaughter’s photos to paint. Due to the detail involved in painting the straw bale, I was NOT planning on painting the straw, but, substituting a rock instead. “Oh no”, said Mitchell, “You must paint the straw, too.” That was the downside of sitting right in front of him in class. I spent more agonizing time on the straw than the rest of the painting! You may have heard the saying, “That which does’t kill you will only make you stronger.”
Sitting close to the master is how we become better. The master artist challenges us, stretches us, corrects us, teaches us, and encourages us until we can create our own works of art.
The word masterpiece came from a time when aspiring artists worked for another master artist, doing all his dirty jobs, and watching the master at work. Eventually they may be allowed to paint something themselves in the master’s style. If it was good enough, some masters would take the credit and sign it with their own name and sell it. It was considered payment for the lessons. When the aspiring artist was ready to go out on his own, he would give his final payment in the form of the master’s piece and give it to the master artist. That was the master’s piece, kind of like taking a final in school.
“The disciple is not above his master;
but every one that is perfect shall be as his master.”
Luke 7:40

True Love

© 2022. Nancy Cupp. All rights reserved.
5 x 7 inch graphite on paper

This is a drawing of a grandfather seeing his little granddaughter at a family gathering. They had not seen each other in a long time and she was so happy to see him. She seemed to sense that he was ill and comforted him. This was a commissioned work by the family.

My Brother And I

Marry Me

©2016, Nancy Cupp. All rights reserved.

This was an acrylic painting commissioned by the groom as a wedding present to his bride. He proposed to her during a blood moon.

Riley's Reflection

© Nancy Cupp. All rights reserved.

This is a colored pencil drawing of my little granddaughter. We were at a hot air balloon festival and walking through the fields where people had parked their cars. I noticed she wasn't with me and turned around to see her admiring her reflection in the grill of a red sports car. I took a photo of this "Kodak" moment and later painted it in watercolor.

Tabitha

© Nancy Cupp. All rights reserved.
This was an illustration for a children's bible story book. It was done in colored pencil. It was taken from the story when Jesus healed a dead boy during a funeral procession, and the little girl was running home to tell her family about what she saw. The author of the book was a teen age when she wrote the story. I don't think she ever published the book.

Golden Retriever portrait

This is an acrylic painting of a golden retriever portrait by Nancy Cupp

Steps in drawing a colored pencil portrait

1. Begin with a good sharp photo and crop only what you want in the artwork.

2. Prepare the reference photo. I used Photoshop Elements to remove the background and crop the face and shoulders. I printed the reference photo the same size as I wanted the finished drawing to be.

3. Draw a vertical line right through the center of the eye on the reference photo and drawing paper in the same place.

4. Draw the center horizontal line on the reference photo and drawing paper in same place. Measure accurately!

5. Use a proportional divider to measure where all the features are in comparison to vertical and horizontal reference lines.

6. Lightly draw in all the reference points of eyes, mouth, nose, hair, jaw line, etc.

7. Use very, very light strokes to begin filling in with colors, aware of the shadows, shapes, angles, sizes, lines, etc.

8. Use very light pressure, barely touching the surface to fill in colors, using many layers of various colors, mixing various colors on top of the other, for shaping and shading, changing directions of strokes.

Realism takes patience and time. Just get in the zone and enjoy.

It took about two days to draw.

Click the photos below to enlarge and read the drawing instructions.

Just follow the arrow that appears in the enlarged window to go to the next photo.