2006 and family holiday portraits

Last week I spent going through my calendar of 2006 and my journals of last year. I recorded the highlights on some new journal pages. Below are two of those pages. My calendar for last year featured William Morris art work, so I decided to incorporate some of my favorites in the background. I have always loved the art that came out of the Arts and Crafts Movement in England.
The last journal page is some sketches of a pastel painting that I am working on. I knew I wanted to have more practice working on faces and the painting of my family around the Thanksgiving table in 1938 afforded practice with 14 or 15 small portraits. I want to draw each of them in my journal to get some practice before I tackle them in the painting. It is facsinating when you do portraits of people because the smallest stroke of the pen can capture the person or completely make them into someone else, a stranger. Aunt Lucille and Uncle Stephen bear some very small spark of the people I knew in my childhood. Aunt Kay and Aunt Mary are definitely off the mark. Practice, Practice, Practice!!!!!!