Art Give-Away Announcement!

Good morning!.........It' a wet morning here. quiet, except for the birds chattering away outside my window. I love the mornings in my studio. I had a little studio drama last night. The screen is missing from my window and an unwelcome visitor decided to drop by. A HUGE black, flying insect of some kind. There are a lot of huge, black, flying things here in Texas! This "thing",   was buzzing so loud and bouncing off all the studio walls and dive bombing me that he finally drove me out of my own studio. He was finally caught but not until he had completely  disrupted my artistic mojo.

  I do want to announce that I am going to give away an original piece of art. Why?.....well because I can but also because I think everyone, should own a REAL piece of art, not just some paper copy of a random image
   What I have decided to do is, create and give away, one of my original art pieces for every fifty daily sketches I add to my sketchbook. I am getting close to having fifty sketches now so I have already created my first give-away piece, an original illustration done in pen, ink and watercolor.
   So each time I add fifty sketches to my book, I will give away one art piece, that's one piece every other month till I hit my goal of 365 daily sketches.
   These little pieces of art will all be based on one of the drawings that I have done in my sketchbook, picked at random. This little give-away will be hosted on my Facebook page. I will be posting plenty of reminders within this next week.
   As for what I am working on now, I have started a portrait of my one year old grandson Ryan.

I know it's hard to see from this photo but I start my drawings very lightly, adding more and more darker values as I go. I love doing the eyes first, they really capture the essence of the person I am attempting to depict. I also love the way the drawing just seems to magically emerge from a blank sheet of paper, slowly morphing into a two dimensional work of art.
  I have more portraits that I need to get initial sketches of underway. Maybe I can get to one of those today. But now it's time to get my next daily sketch done. Y'all have a great weekend!