Digital color sketch

Just a quick 5 minute dabble into digital color over line.

My history with horses.

When I was a wee little lad I had a huge poster of a galloping horse in my room; it was for some Scholastic Book. I learned to draw equine anatomy off of it. I've always loved horses but over the years I strayed away from drawing them (commercials, music videos, and advertising can do that to a guy). Every now and then I still give a go at drawing a horse or two for fun, but I know my horse anatomy's a bit way off now. It seriously makes me want to go out to a farm and sketch from live animals again.

A little splash of digital color

Quick sketch of an innocent red-headed gal sporting a gun here. I decided for kicks to take it into Photoshop and toss in about 10 minutes of color just for kicks.

Relaxing in the summer.

Not that I really ever take a break from working, but I do take a break from teaching. It's the summer for me now. I always joke that this is the only time of the year where I make enough money to go back and teach. To a certain degree that's true as I can focus solely on my business and not have to worry about some student's career choice, their layout, their composition or some other dilemma that they're going through while attending art school.

My latest fishing kick.

I've just recently noticed myself drawing images of fishing for no apparent reason. Sometimes it's just a person with a fishing line leading a pack animal, sometimes it's a person in a stream, or some odd juxtaposition such as this where the poor fisherman isn't aware he's the meal soon.

The Big Bad Wolf

One of the serious baddies in all of folklore cross dressing.

Mixed media piggie.

Just for kicks (and the fact I hardly ever do it on real jobs), I decided to have some fun with a drawing i did in my latest sketchbook. I started off with a line work sketch of the pig with a Sharpie, went back into it with a Micron pen for minutia, started some of the shading with a very limited palette set of colored pencils, and then added some subtle digital colors. It's an experiment at best but it's something I don't get a lot of opportunity to do with my hectic schedule. Between teaching, clients, and just trying to have a normal life, I have to sneak this guilty pleasure in at 4:00AM!

Sketchbooks sketchbooks sketchbooks sketchbooks...

The majority of the sketches you see in this blog are from my sketchbooks. This is what four years of sketchbooks look like. It's 25 lbs. (or just a touch over 11 kilograms for those of you on the metric scale). They're all 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" Handbook Journal Company Travelogue Series sketchbooks. In this box, there is 55 individual sketchbooks. Each sketchbook contains about 65 individual images for a grand total of 3575 drawings.

I do this as an exercise for myself; I use it to stay limber mentally and physically. I also do this on top of my real job and teaching. It gives me a chance to explore new line weights, styles, and subjects that my regular paying clientele might not ask me to do. I also do this to hopefully inspire my students, to let them know it's possible to do this. Finding the time can be tricky but it's so worth it.

Not every drawing is a gem. Some are just random scribbles. Some are done in marker, some are in pencil, some are a combination of media- but all of them I'm putting down a mark. I'm not afraid to take a chance. And if the idea is valid (no matter how rough it is), I can always come back to it and make it better. It's about taking a chance. It's my expressive nature coming to the forefront here.

And ultimately it's also a lot of fun to do.

Peccary for the heck of it.

It was just one of those fuzzy sketch moments that just happened. I'm not sure why I drew this but I will admit to digging doing the fuzziness about them.

Deep deep sea denizens

Ever since I was a little kid and I found out about angler fishes, I've always been fascinated by them and now that there seem to be more and more deep sea explorations, we're learning more and more about them. They're just so unique looking that they almost crave to be drawn... and who cares if it's accurate?

Homage to the local grease monkey

It's been a brutal winter. I can only hope that those poor guys who have to work on cars this time of the year are well appreciated.

Chickens & piranhas

On a recent trip down to Lexington, Kentucky during the Christmas holiday, I was inspired to draw live chickens and asked to draw piranhas. It's not exactly something I draw on a regular basis and it'd been ages since I've had an assignment where I had to draw them for a paying client. It was an interesting challenge and a great deal of fun to be pushed like this.