Settling down

What do you do plan to do when you retire? I hit my mid thirties about a month ago and this is a question that I've had on my mind for a few years as it's one that's been going around my place of work quite frequently recently as there are a number of people at or nearing retirement age and one of them was my uncle, a man I always held in high respect ever since I was a child. We both worked for the same organization but in different fields and he had been working for the organization since before I was even born so it was hard to picture him ever retiring, but it turned out be true.

A few months before he retired his oldest son contacted me asking if I would be interested in doing his portrait for him as a retirement gift. I was honored and I knew that I wanted to do something special for him so I took the next step and ventured into doing a portrait that was done completely in color and here's the results.

This was the first time I did something in complete colored pencils and it was a rather large learning curve, and one that I think paid off pretty well. I went back and forth with myself a few times as to how I was going to sketch him out and the first one that came to mind was to sketch him walking out the door, but the more I thought of it I realized that did signify anything, but something coming to an end and I'd rather it be something that can be nostalgic. To achieve that I went and talked with him one day while I was on lunch asking about his retirement plans and during our converstaing he happened to take a pose for a few minutes that I knew would work out best as he became "the great thinker". I also admit now that this drawing did cause me to curse out loud a few times, mostly about his pants. The old standard work blue pants, but depending upon how the light hits them they may appear purple, so trying to capture that did make curse a few times, but again it was a great learning experience. 

As you can see it was well recieved, he really enjoyed it as did his family and friends and working on his portrait has helped me to gain a lot of experience and perspective with colored pencils, which I haven't stopped using for the last few months and I'm eager to show the results of those in the coming months as well.

~Patrick