Portrait of Three Golfers

Working on my art has been a bit slow because of issues with my dad. I'm losing my mind while he's losing his mind! His health is holding steady, now the problem is with his memory, confusion and some dementia which I find an incredible challenge. He fights me on every decision that needs to be made regarding his health and I just get so tired. The doctor has just put him on a new medication for memory issues and I'm hoping it will work.

Enough complaining! In the last few weeks I've been working on this portrait for my husband. The portrait of the three golfers are my husband (left) and his two best friends. I won't put their names in the blog because the portrait is a surprise. Although I doubt my husband or his friends will even read my blog! When it's finished we are going to have giclees made so he can present each friend with a print. These three lucky golfers have played golf courses in Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This year They are going to a world tournament in Deal, England (although the name of the tournament escapes me).

I wanted to portray them as happy and casual with the lovely landscape of this golf course in Scotland behind them. My husband had some special requests such as take a few pounds off him, remove wrinkles and make them all look younger. Yeah right, easier said than done! The piece measures 17x23" but their faces are only 1 1/2" wide. I began the drawing with the faces, because if I couldn't get their likenesses, then it wasn't worth doing the portait. And I learned that it's very difficult to get the likeness of a person when the face is so small because you have be able to draw it in a few strokes. Would you believe, the person I had the most trouble with was my own husband? His skin tone is darker and I found the browns made him look too wooden. I used purples, flesh, peach and some light browns. The surface I chose is white illustration board and I started with the Prismacolor and Coloursoft pencils then added Polychromos and Prismacolor Verithins to burnish and fill in the grain of the paper so white specks wouldn't show through. I also used a small bristle brush to burnish areas I wanted smooth. Two areas I still think I need to work on are their teeth, they may be too white and the grass which is much brighter green than I had intended. I don't think the grass area will take any more layers of pencil so I think I'll try blending either watercolor or pastel on top. Any suggestions? Please comment!