General Scribbles

And I even recognise that the first one is a singer!
Can't remember his name (if I ever knew what it was in the first place) but I do indeed know the face and you've done that one very well too.

And both of these are far beyond the dross that I abandoned today.
Momentum is hard.

Thanks Val, the first one is Chester Bennington of Linkin Park fame, a very recognisable face.

Yup momentum is the hardest part of painting for me, not really sure why but there you go and I'm sure your 'dross' wasn't as bad as your making out, it never has been before!

Oh, it really was dross.
I'm ever so glad that no-one else sees the pictures I abandon. 

Anyway, this one wasn't dross. I still wasn't confident about it during the first half hour but it turned out OK in the end...

 

Well, this is not dross at all. Whatever dross means. I love the curly wisps of fur below the chin, but all of the fur looks really nice and soft. Lovely kitty.

Some Oil Brush stuff that could do with some better edges.

 

Oh I dunno. Plenty of sharp edges and you should have a mix of hard and soft edges for interest, right?

Nother thing of questionable edges...

 

That cat is awesome Val, as Charlotte says the wispy fur is just gorgeous, I wanna rub his (or her) chin.

I'm trying to loosen up a little on the outer edges of my portraits. I really love the way some paintings kind of fall to pieces as they approach the edges of the canvas, how they almost degenerate into a sketch.

Not sure I'm quite there yet with this one but it's starting to move in a direction I kinda like though I think a background with some kind of vignette effect would help.

Anyway, here's Morgan Freeman as Red in The Shawshank Redemption. The greatest voice over in a movie.
 

This is the kind of background I was thinking of but I'm not sure this is an improvement.

 

The ArtRage palette knife is ideal for that kind of sketchy, loose vignette. With a bit of erasing and just a few strokes you can easily create a series of expressive broken edges that fall away into the canvas texture.

Lovely portrait too.