Sketch

Sketch of a woman done for practice.

Benjamin Rough

I've been doing some sketches in preparation for a portrait of a young boy that I've been planning to do once I'm back in a studio space.  Mostly pencil drawings that I can't scan right now, but I did do a quick color rough on the computer.  It doesn't quite capture him, but that's why you do these sketches.

Recent Work

This is a painting of my college roommate that I did for no reason in particular. It ended up winning the grand prize at a regional art event in my hometown.

Commissioned portrait of a Swedish lady that I became friends with in France. It's one of the few portraits I've done in which I had the luxury of painting from a live model for a significant portion of the process. I painted on-site at her home for most of a day, with fairly frequent breaks to watch the Beijing Olympics as they were broadcast. I spent about a week and a half finishing it with photo reference. I'm quite unhappy with this photo of the painting, as it's lacking most of the color and detail in the original. I'll try and post a better photo someday.

A quick pencil portrait done of my cousin as a christmas gift.

This is the teenage daughter of one of our neighbors in France.  I presented it to them as a gift for all the help they had given me during the time I had spent there.  This was one of my quicker portraits, with the actual work taking place over the course of about a day and a half.  I tried to stay as loose with the brush-strokes as I could while still retaining a likeness.

Commissioned portrait done from an old black and white photograph that had been poorly colorized.  I decided to switch it to a sepia tone rather than full color, and eliminated the background to emphasize the silhouette of the rider.  It was a little difficult to make out details, so I tried to bring out the sharpest and most clean elements of the Indian motorcycle that was pictured.  It was a fun piece to do.