Pencil to Digital Art

Ruben was my favorite student from my first year of teaching. He was a Hispanic boy who was not very tall, but made up for it with a big heart. The only problem I had with him was the time I caught him signing another student’s report card (as their father, not as a classmate.) I had a really tough first year as a teacher. But on the last day of classes in May of 1982, Ruben told me I was his favorite teacher that year. Damn, I had been thinking of quitting and finding another job. Because of Ruben, I was a teacher for 23 years at that school, and 31 years overall.

You can see how I modified the portrait with digital and AI tools. I used the anime cartoon tricks on the eyes and nose to make it look somewhat more like manga art than a portrait of what Ruben really looked like. I also moderated the use of yellow in the picture. It’s not that I misused it in the colored pencil sketch, but as my eyes have become more colorblind over time, the overuse has become more apparent.

Randy was my pain-in-the-tuckus student for my second year as a teacher. He stole comic books from me. He wore a Batman Halloween mask to class because my blue Ford Torino had fins on the back fenders. He tried to give me the nickname Batman but ended up being called Batty Boy for at least the next year because that is how I addressed him in saying good morning every time he wore the mask. His classmates thought it was the perfect nickname. Some class clowns you really love because they are actually funny.

I was always regretful that the original portrait had owl eyes due to the whiteout I used to repair the smeared highlights. The eyes had no visible highlights before I turned them both into blazing headlights. I also did the original on graph paper, hence, the design on the shirt. I could moderate that into a more normal shirt pattern in the digital redraw.

The main takeaway from this is that digital and AI tools like AI Mirror allow me to dress up my drawings despite my increasingly shaky arthritic hands. I have had arthritis now for 50 years.