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My Favorites Are Not Your Favorites; It’s a Good Thing
It always momentarily amazes me which paintings I post on Instagram get the most likes. Paintings I absolutely love usually gain low scores. Dogs and chickens are popular. I understand that. I offer this comment here for past students who may wonder why people are not falling in love with the painting they just posted […]
More: Tools Really Do Change the Way You Draw
This is part two of the current series on tools changing the way that you draw. Specifically pens! You can see part one here. Today I’ve putting up three sketches of musician and artist John Lurie. He has had a series on HBO about his life on a Caribbean island. It’s a show where he […]
Tools Really Do Change the Way You Draw
I’ve met students who come to my classes who are totally frustrated with their materials and tools. They keep doing the same thing with their tools, using those tools, usually because an “expert” told them they were the best tools. Unfortunately the best tool for one artist might not be the best tool for another. […]
Brush Pen Portrait Problems: Aging
I know I could tone it down, but I do have a tendency to keep my bold brush pen lines when sketching women—and it ages them. Recently a reader wrote to commission me to do a portrait of herself and her husband. Yes, I do commissions (though I’m not taking any new ones until after […]
Let the Color Palette Carry the Emotion
Sometimes the subject you want to capture requires you have bold lines, so you pick a bold brush pen. Perhaps there is an emotion in a person’s face that you want to capture? Then it’s important to let the color palette choices you make support that. Here’s a very angry woman. The bright colors of […]
Quick Brush Pen Portrait
Here’s another quick brush pen portrait. Something fun you can do: Click on this image so it blows up on your screen. Then in a new browser window, open Sunday’s post which included a brush pen portrait, but on a different type of paper. Blow that image up by clicking on it. Look at both […]
Thinking about White Hair on Toned Paper
There’s nothing finished in this study of a man with white hair and a beard. It’s me noodling around experimenting with how to get the values of white hair on toned paper. I’m working in a handbound journal made with Zerkall Nideggen (it has a lovely fiber fleck of texture throughout). I guess paper nostalgia […]
Thinking about Ink Wash
Last week I started another one of these notebooks with printed ink lines. I always have a book like this near the TV so I can sketch if the mood takes me. This sketch is from spring 2021. It seems a lifetime ago. Back then Niji water brushes were what I was used to when […]
What’s on My Patreon Site for August 2022?
Last month on my Patreon/Roz-interim site I was writing and demonstrating working loosely. For me working loosely is a big topic. I’ve written about the need for each artist to define what “loosely” means to him or her. For me part of working loosely involves the tools you’re using. So this August I’ll be continuing to […]
Some Thoughts on Beards
It’s pretty obvious I draw a lot of men with beards! I’ve explained why countless times. (Actually I suppose we could use the search function to sort of count but not every time a post is illustrated with a man with a beard do I write about beards, so…) The other day on Instagram a […]