This is my daughter and “Poppy River” is how she refers to herself lately (her middle name is not River). My husband even said “Well done!” when he saw this drawing so I know it’s a pretty good likeness. I was very worried earlier today that I had ruined it by trying to “fix” the eyes just a teensy bit more and they ended up looking a bit vacant and (eeek!) zombie-like. It was scaring me to look at it. I’m terrified of zombies and yes, I know they’re not real. I watched 5 minutes of Walking Dead and I’ve had zombies on the brain (hahaha) ever since. But alas, zombie-Poppy is gone and I can sleep tonight.
I’ve been wanting to do a portrait of her for a while and since she will not sit still for me (I DID try…) I did this one from a photo. Not how I usually work and I was surprised/reminded that it is not easier to work from photos, just different. It did help me get over my resistance to working from photos somewhat–a good exercise to prepare me for my next shadow paintings. The boards for those are prepped and ready to go, waiting for me to just get going on them…
Dayna Bordage Art 
Beautiful!
The face is really lovely and very Poppy. you do great charcoal drawings, whereas it drives me crazy, I need something more precise like pencil or ink.
If you’re scared of zombies, which I also was, immerse yourself in zombie comedies and zombie movies from the 50’s. Then move on to later years until current films.
That’s what I did and now I love zombies!
Why thank you! I find that I do best if I do nearly the entire thing in vine charcoal and then I add regular charcoal. Charcoal is not very forgiving.
And I LOVED Shaun of the Dead so maybe I’ll look into the 50’s zombie movies :)
Wow Dayna, another great work of art. Looks just like Poppy. You did the face and eyes very well. I had trouble with eyes in one of my paintings too (you know which one). I also like Shaun of the Dead, but am a bigger fan of the original Dawn of the Dead, teeth scare me more! (I wouldn’t paint teeth)LOL