Yay, it’s January! My first blog post of the year is this portrait that was created as a charitable donation through Gallery of Mo to raise awareness of prostate and testicular cancer through Movember. Gallery of Mo partnered with a wide variety of artists to create portraits of people participating in growing a mustache in awareness of Movember for a donation to the cause. This year they raised over $11,000!

I participated this year as an artist, and this is the portrait I created for my commissioner. Typically, people send a photo of themselves with a mustache, but my commissioner was a mother who sent in a photo of her ~2 year old daughter in her favorite coat and a separate photo of their cat to be illustrated with mustaches. Children and cats—I couldn’t ask for more! And here are a few process shots of some exploratory sketching and the final pencil drawing for the illustration (sans mustaches)!