Currently Browsing: Hahnemühle Travel Journal 22 articles
Embrace the Wonkiness
Too many of my students fuss and fuss over a wonky line, or worse, stop a sketch altogether because a likeness is lost. But I think there is great fun in diving in with a bold pen and feeling about for the features, one wonky line after the other. Finishing something leads to something else […]
Series Television’s Response To The Pandemic
There have been numerous ways that series television has responded to the constraints and realities imposed on production by the Pandemic. This is one of my favorites: Comedians sitting on couches watching episodes of “House Hunters.”
In Context: The Beginning of One of Those Emotional Entanglements…
Another Delano Ames quotation. (Hahnemühle Travel Journal.) “He gulped sentimentally.” Ah to have written that, what a perceptive way to see a dog.
In Context—Quotations from Revisited Books
The one highlight of going through my books and culling things out is that I’ve been able to re-read books out-of-sight for 20 or more years. It’s like saying hello to old friends. With Delano Ames it’s a very insightful friend.
Different Drawing Approaches for the Same Subject
Just this week I was asked by nine people how I start my drawings. I use different approaches to start my drawings depending on what pen I’m using, the paper size, and even just how I feel my eyes are doing on any given day. For a more detailed response I explain that I have […]
In Context: Ever Wonder What Happens to All Those Beard Portraits I Paint?
Here’s a quick sketch I made almost exactly a year ago. I was standing in the bedroom looking out through the next room into the studio at the wall of portraits I had hanging in the studio. The beard portraits I do in my journals for fun can’t be cut out and framed. But I […]
Now Use Even Fewer Strokes…
Did you spend your weekend working with your brush pen like I suggested on Friday? If so you’re ready to use even fewer strokes. Draw your subject with as as few strokes as possible. Think before you draw a contour line or make texture marks. Do you really need ink marks for that contour? For […]
A Little Bit of Collage Can Be Your Friend
You know how I like to paint on drawing paper? Sometimes the paper complains. That happened when I put in the Montana Marker background on this page spread. The marker ink/paint saturated and roughed up the paper at the top of the page. I didn’t want the paper to be weak there because it would […]
Since I Was on the Topic of Hair…
Hair, it’s one of the things that pulls me to draw a portrait. How does that person have his or her hair? I am particularly susceptible to Jane Austen dramatizations—so much wonderful 18th century or 19th century hair depending on how the film decides to go with fashion at the cusp of time. Or anything […]
Television Recommendation—Dead Still
I’ve been meaning to recommend “Dead Still” for over a year. This show popped up on Acorn. It’s about a postmortem photographer working in the late 19th century in Ireland. There are some very interesting characters, a mystery about the man’s past which runs through the whole season, and incredible set decoration, wardrobe, and hairstyles. […]