From weddings and birthdays to new babies and graduations, a unique portrait is the perfect way to capture your most precious moments! They also make wonderful gifts for those you love.
Your commissioned portrait is one hundred percent unique, drawn by hand by me, Miranda Aschenbrenner, an artist with years of experience. These one-of-a-kind drawings are of the highest quality.
Drawn by hand in graphite on smooth 3-ply bristol paper, they are finished off with a spray fixative that ensures there will be no smudging.
Portrait Gift Certificates are also available, and are a great way to give the gift of an original portrait when you don’t have the perfect photo available to you. This is a perfect gift for weddings, when the bride and groom can choose from their own wedding photos!
A couple of months ago, I happened to stumble across a Kijiji ad. Someone was looking for an artist to do a drawing of hands, which would eventually become a tattoo. Thinking, cool opportunity, sounds simple enough, I emailed Tim with a link to my work. We set up a meeting to discuss his ideas.
I soon found out, simple was not in the cards! Instead, what Tim had in mind was a unique, creative idea for a one-of-a-kind tattoo, an image that did not exist anywhere and would have to be created from scratch. What he wanted was an image of Keith Richard’s gnarly hands in a classic prayer position, featuring Keith’s iconic skull ring as well as other jewelery.
What followed was a process of collecting images for reference and a lot of back and forth to make sure I had all the details just right. My finished product, of course, is only half of Tim’s project. He is currently in the process of having the image tattooed onto his back.
Hi folks! Yes, it’s that time again. I am now officially taking commissions for the Christmas season. It’s importrant to get your orders in early this year. I am off on my honeymoon in December and won’t have much time last minute. The end of November will be your last chance to get a portrait in time for the holidays. Don’t wait too long, you have just over a month!
This portrait is nearly finished, I just have a few tiny details to add. This is Chani and her son, winner of my portrait giveaway back in November. Later this week I will be shipping this drawing across the world all the way to France!
Chani’s portrait is coming along; I anticipate finishing it up this weekend. Here I have done most of the shading on Chani’s and her son’s face, as well as her son’s jacket. The shading actually involves three layers. One with a hard pencil to map out the values, a second with a softer pencil to get the mid-tones of the skin, and a third in an even softer pencil to get the shadows. It’s this gradation from light to dark that creates the illusion of three dimensions.
You may be wondering what happened to my portrait giveaway that happened nearly two months ago. Well, here’s an update!
Chani, a lovely woman from Paris, was the winner of a free 5×7″ pencil portrait. She sent me a picture of her and her adorable son, but by that time I was deep into Christmas commissions. She kindly agreed to wait until January for her picture.
Here is the preliminary line drawing for Chani’s portrait. Each of my drawings start out this way as a map for the shading. In some ways, this is the most important part of the portrait. If the lines are even a millimeter off, it can throw the whole thing off track!
This will be the third piece of mine that has made it overseas, the first two being a small drawing and painting that went home with my fiance’s best friend.
Race Car Portrait, 7×5″, Ink
This piece isn’t a commission, it’s one of my own side projects. This was a Christmas gift for my fiance’s step-father. What do you get the guy who has everything? Art!
This is Ron’s race car, which he’s been driving for about two years now. It’s a dwarf car, which makes it just big enough to fit into. They are really fun to watch on the race track because they do a lot of weaving in and out.
As far as I’m concerned, portraits aren’t strictly people’s faces; portraits can be of animals, houses and yes, cars!
I decided to do this piece in pen. I used a cross hatch method, which means that I used many little tiny, overlapping lines to create shading. Then I layered some coloured pencil on top. The trick with working in ink is really avoiding the areas you want to be lighter. There’s no erasing!
This was another one of my Christmas portraits that I could’t post until after Christmas. I wouldn’t want to give away the surprise!
Here is my last Christmas portrait of the year! I’ve been really busy this year with quite a few commissions, not to mention my own projects. I love giving art as a gift simply because it can be so much more personal than something you buy from the store.
This portrait was commissioned by Ryan as a gift to his new wife. They were married earlier this year. This piece was a pleasure to draw, not only becuase they are such a good looking couple, but because Ryan provided me with excellent photos.
The best part is that Ryan lives about 2200 miles away from me! He came across my website, loved my work and decided to get a drawing done. It’s still a bit unbelievable to me that I am able to reach so many people around the world.
Merry Christmas to you all!
Two Shelties, pencil on paper, 8×10″
This portrait was done for Michelle, who I have done commissions for several times before. This particular pencil drawing was commissioned as a Christmas gift for her boyfriend’s parents.
These two beautiful shelties are the parents’ dogs. The one lying down is Brady and apparently, he is “full of piss and vinegar.” Standing over Brady is Wally, the older and more mature of the two.
These guys were a pleasure to draw. I am finding that I really enjoy drawing dogs!
Portraits by Miranda 