Currently Browsing: working in a series 35 articles
More Fun with Journal Grids
Here’s a finished grid from a journal in May this year. I worked in a Strathmore 500 Series Mixed Media Journal (7.75 x 9.75 inches, soft cover). I pre-painted the grid squares using Nichiban masking tape and Montana markers. The spaces on the recto page were brushstrokes of acrylic color. Sean was glued down […]
Painting Multiple Portraits of the Same Person (Or Other Subject)
People ask me all the time why I paint the same people (or dogs, birds, rocks) over and over. I find that it’s interesting. And challenging. A way to take another look. A way to learn something more about the subject and get it down on paper while developing some way to do that with […]
Do It Again
Anyone reading my blog knows how important I think practice is. Too often people make a drawing or painting, get halfway (or more) through, and give up. I hear from students who’ve done this. Typically they don’t draw after such a session for several days or more. The better action is to have another […]
Looking at the Sennelier Ink Brush Pen
Note: I’ve just placed the sketches in order, in the gallery below. The order is important if you want to follow along with the experiment. I was working with photos of fair goers from @earthsworld. Early in April I saw an ad for the Sennelier Ink Brush Pen. They look like the Pentel ColorBrush. They […]
Another Green Sheet
When I’m testing a pen or a paper (or in this case both) I like to work with them for several days. So the day after that green lady from my previous post, I sketched this woman—again a fair goer from @earthsworld. My thoughts on this face were a bit different. I added a bit […]
What I Did in the Pandemic: Pepper Sketches Of Course!
I’ve been trying to get my digital files organized, and I came across this post from 2020 during the pandemic. I don’t know why I had this large landscape book, and Akademie Watercolor Journal from Hahnemühle. This is their student line of paper. The book is nicely bound, the paper is OK, but […]
Snow Piles, We’ve Seen the Last of Them, for Now
Sometimes projects sneak up on us. Sometimes projects are simply the manifestation of a habit. Sometimes it’s fun to catch up on scanning your journal pages and seeing the massive amounts of snow you’ve just dealt with. (Actually I wasn’t doing much dealing with it—Dick was the one creating 7-foot tall snow piles on either […]
In 2018 I Did a Project about Hats
Yep, hats; just me drawing people with hats on. Sometimes I worked in my current journal, sometimes I worked on loose sheets for my loose sheets journal. I found some while moving old digital file. Some (when they were on loose sheets) might end up on the wall. I stopped looking for people in hats […]
Why Keep Sketching the Same Subject?
A friend of mine once said he couldn’t understand how I could draw the same subject over and over. I do that a lot. Most notably daily drawings for 4 and a half years of my dog Dottie. But my life is full of drawing the same subject over and over. Life drawing models I […]
One More Thing about Tools Changing the Way We Draw
This is part three of a 3-part series on how our drawing tools change the way we draw. Part one is here. And part two was Monday and you can toggle back to it using the navigation links at the base of this post. I have focused on pens with different tips. You can expand your […]