Mr Uphoff

Mr. Uphoff
11 X 14
Graphite on Paper

This is a drawing of my 87 year old father-in-law.  I am going to try and paint a portrait of him.  He is a very special person to me.  He has the strength of character like Ben Cartright on The Ponderosa, although he has a gentler disposition.  He has a gait similar to John Wayne due to a tractor/car accident many years' ago.  He has the speaking voice of James Earl Jones, which is why he was always chosen for speaking parts in church. He has a beautiful bass voice and sings both in the choir and at barbershop. And he has the eyebrows of Andy Rooney! Lol!  He is a Christian, not because he talks about his faith, but because he lives his faith each and every day.  I have never heard him say an unkind thing about anyone.  He has been married to his high school sweetheart for 67 years.  I hope I can do him justice in the painting.

Here is the reference photo that I used.  As you can see, I was taking a picture of one of his great-grandkids and he was in the background.  If you use reference photos, I think it is always good to look in the background and look for subject material.

I started my class in Peoria last night.  I am really glad that I signed up!  It was so fun to paint as a group and the teacher is really good too.  I think it has helped me to break out of my dry period.  We started out by painting black and white objects in light by only using white and a dark paint.  Next week we will try to find values using colored objects.