If I Only Had a Friend

Here’s another little drawing of some Wizard of Oz characters. This time it’s Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. They were my favorite Oz characters when I was a kid. The coloring was done with watercolors, and the linework is all ink. Kudos to my wife for coming up with the caption.

Watercolor Seahorses

I’m starting to really like working in watercolors. It’s a lot quicker than working in gouache. It’s nice not to have to worry about covering up the underlying sketch, plus mixing the colors is super quick. This piece was supposed to originally be done in gouache. These two seahorses are pot-bellied seahorses (Hippocampus abdominalis). Here are some progress shots. The first shows the original tracing paper sketch overlaid. I don’t normally do tracing paper, but…

Scarecrow of Oz

Here is the second in my series of watercolor literary / old timey characters.

Sea Horse Sketch

The power went out at work last week, so I took the opportunity to go draw some fish. They were the only ones with full power because of the back up generators. My eyes hurt after drawing in the dark ambient lighting.

Bucking Horse in Watercolor

This is is my first real watercolor piece. I’m trying to learn it. I’ve seen some really cool stuff done in watercolor.

Life Drawing Open Studio

I went to Philbrook’s life drawing open studio this evening. It’s really quite a nice set up, just $10 bucks per session which is every Thursday. It’s kind of fun getting back into the art studio setting with lots of other people around drawing. Anyway click past this jump (if you are on the main blog page) to see the drawings as there is obviously nudity. 20 minute sessions: 10, 5, and 1 minute sessions: (china marker)…

Gas Mask Ladies Inked

I think I’ll do watercolor on top of this drawing. I really need to get better at it. Plus if I mess it up I can always go back and digitally color it.

Drawing on a Lazy Saturday

I drew these really lightly with a 2h so sorry for the mediocre photos. The wife fell asleep on a couch, then proceeded to wake up and read more Jane Eyre. Click the images for bigger (you can see them better that way).

Perspective Map

Been working on a map as a favor for a friend’s camp. It took me a lot longer than I thought it would. I had to reconstruct everything from blurry satellite photos and hazy recollections of where buildings were, plus a random collection of photos of the buildings and some verbal descriptions. And here’s the pen linework: I did this on a pretty large piece of paper, with a light drawing in 2h pencil and then the…

Pink Salmon Ocean Phase

Brush pen lines to digital layout and coloring. This little guy is going in an aquarium kiosk. He’s actually a vector.

A. Carnegie, Crazy Color Portrait

One of my online friends uses crazy colors in his work and luscious line work. I’m copying him a bit with the loud colors. He says that he picks the craziest colors and then just makes them work. The lines were done with a brush pen. Again this seems a lot faster and more expressive than my normal microns.

Cheetah Rough, Inking and Watercolor

I haven’t posted anything in awhile. I’ve been doing a lot of programming lately instead of drawing. Code examples aren’t really interesting to post. This is a 3” rough in my small sketchbook for something bigger I’ve been meaning to do. This is my first successful thing done with a brush pen. I’m also playing some with watercolors. I need to get a scanner for my house because the photos blow out some of the…

Old Time Baseball Catcher

This is an old time baseball catcher done in graphite. I have a bunch of sketches I need to post. I’ve not been good about scanning plus I’ve been on vacation.

Cow Anatomy Drawing

I figured I’d try to do an anatomy drawing with my own pose. It’s hilarious sitting at subway drawing at lunch with anatomy pages strewn across the table drawing a cow without its skin on. Ink on paper, then digitally colored.

WWI Soldier Inking

I’m playing around with some more inking. I was trying to render the image with large blocks of dark color to see what would happen. Coloring is all digital, the lines are black ink on paper. On a side note I also drew a shark from life. It’s kind of hard drawing in a dark exhibit with light refracting all over the page.

Painting of an Axe in the Forest

Watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil on cold-pressed watercolor paper. I will post a “making of” animation soon, but it’s too late tonight! I finally figured out how to get those bright whites and bright hues you can get in digital. “Making of” update: The first image in the sequence shows the watercolor and gouache underpainting. The watercolor is the sky portion of the image, then the rest is gouache. The trees in the distance that I add…

Gouache Painting of a Bald Eagle

Another little gouache painting of an eagle. For some reason when I took a photo straight on I didn’t like how it looked, so I took one like this.

Gouache Rhino Painting and Inking

This is my first time to use gouache. I think I’m in love. I’d read online that inking on top of gouache wasn’t a good idea, but I went ahead and did it. The pens would “gunk up” and not put ink down, but then I just used them on another piece of paper for a bit and they would start running again. I might have to experiment with it some. I’m also using my new…

Aldabra Giant Tortoise Illustration

This is my third inking. Micron pens on sketch paper, with digital coloring and layout. I’m really starting to like this process. I’m trying to see what all I can do with it.

Ink Drawing of a Tiger

I did this sketch of a tiger from some reference that I took out at the zoo. This is my second inking to do. I’m starting to like the process. It takes me 2 lunches instead of one to do a drawing but it definitely has a level of polish to it that pencils just can’t compete with. Coloring is digital.

Cat & Rat

This was my first real time to work with a pen. I’d done other smaller things and immediately felt in over my head. I think I might be able to work on this process and get it to work better for me. Definitely a study piece I want to do more pen now.

Sketch of a Rat

I drew a rat at lunch. I’ve been playing around with a different technique involving spreading the graphite around with a tissue early in the drawing process, spreading the midtones. Then I added in darker values and picked out highlights with an eraser.

Jean Sibelius Portrait

This is my first attempt at watercolors ever! It’s a portrait of Jean Sibelius, the Finnish composer. I’ve been listening to his 6th & 7th symphonies all day long. Watercolor, chalk, and graphite on gray paper.

Ancient Sharks

Xenacanthus, a freshwater shark that had an eel-like body. Stethacanthus. The dorsal fin and top of the head were full of teeth, essentially modified dermal dentacles, theorized for use in either mating or hitching ride on larger animals. Freaky either way. Helicoprion or whorl-toothed shark. This freaky animal had a spiral of teeth jutting from its jaw that was probably used for slashing through schools of fishing, or specially suited to getting through the yummy protections of…

Life Drawing Session

Thumbnailed for drawn nudity. Charcoal & Chalk on Gray Paper, 20 min. Charcoal & Chalk on Gray Paper, 20 min. China Marker on Newsprint…

Figures From Imagination

I’m going to start doing figures from my imagination. This one turned out pretty well I think. It’s kind of a silly pose but hopefully I’ll come up with some fun ones.