It is lovely on the back porch today. Sun is shining. 75 degrees. Slight breeze. I have been out here since 7:00 this morning trying to put faces on my brother and my daddy, and it just ain't happening.
There must be a dozen drawing variations, plus another dozen disembodied faces all over the backs of discarded paper, and none of them look like my subjects. My reference photo is blurry, but I have other photographs of them that are clear enough for me to see the construction of their faces and have come up with acceptable head shapes. But their smiles in these other pictures are different from their smiles in my reference photo, and it is the reference photo expressions that I want to capture - the ones I can't clearly see.
The faces on the paper will be about an inch tall, crown to chin. That's not much space to work in. At that scale, one pencil stroke too many will change the whole expression.
After several hours and several hundred sets of ears, eyes, and lips, I suited up for yard work and went outside. The phlox bed is kaput for this year. I've been leaving the fading blooms for the bees and butterflies, but they're not interested anymore, so I cut the phlox down today. Almost chopped down two of my new hydrangeas but managed to rein myself in before doing much damage.
The hydrangea limb that I stuck in the ground amongst the phlox has rooted and has sent up a shoot about 6" tall. It is spindly and pale from having been shaded by the phlox all summer. Maybe, now that it's uncovered, these last few weeks of sunshine will beef it up a little bit before the leaves fall on it for the winter.
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