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Step Three of “Little Red Rooster” 0

Between going out of town for a spell and attempting to coach my son’s soccer team, I’ve been a little slow with updating this painting’s progression. Getting caught up, I’ve waited for the first layer to firm up a bit, but not dry completely, and I went over the background with a similar layer of [...]

Step two of “Little Red Rooster” 0

I’ve just laid down some base colors here. It really is not even a complete under painting as I am using quite a bit of medium and really thinning down the colors to make the base coat go quickly. The image quality here is rather poor and the colors are a bit more intense in [...]

Step One of “Little Red Rooster” 0

Even though I grew up on a standard city lot, my dad thought it was important to show us where food comes from. In addition to a prodigious vegetable garden, at different times we raised turkeys, squab, quail, rabbits, pheasants, and even peafowl and a few pigs, but I remember the chickens the most. We [...]

Tracy’s Ponies in Pencil 0

From time to time I receive emails from aspiring artists, or people who are just generally curious about art and my process. Not long ago I received a message from Tracy. She is fairly new to drawing, but she has passion and from what I could see, some real talent.  She wrote: “I haven’t any [...]

Step Five of “Horse Portrait 1″ 0

As I move down the face, my blending becomes increasingly refined to give the illusion of finer and finer hairs, down to the bare skin of the muzzle. It becomes more important to focus on the little details such as wrinkles surrounding the lips to give the portrait life. This takes me a good deal [...]

Step Four of “Horse Portrait 1″ 1

While I love the expressive eyes of this animal, the veins and muscles are what make this picture come alive for me. The jowl is getting to the value saturation I’ll be comfortable with and the contrast between the mane and forehead is developing. It is difficult to get a natural looking contrast between the [...]

Step three of “Horse Portrait 1″ 0

The deep darkness of the ears is mirrored in the eyes to catch interest and direct the focus onto the face. For these darks I am using Kimberly 9xxb pencils along with 2b Staedler Mars Lumographs. I am keeping conscious of the desired contrast here, and not over doing the darks giving a nice transition [...]

Step two of “Horse Portrait 1″ 0

In drawing the neck I do not overemphasize detail. I want to get a good roundness to the form and accurately depict the shapes and shadows of the muscles, but I want the focus of this drawing to lead forward to the face. The ears will have some deep shadows which will be a convenient [...]

Step one of “Horse Portrait 1″ 0

Horse’s are a perennial favorite subject for many artists. The copacetic relationship mankind has shared with equines goes back to the dawn of civilization. From an artistic perspective, there are many attributes that make drawing and painting these animals both challenging and rewarding. The intense muscularity, sheen of the hair, and expressive faces tug at [...]

Step Six of “Left to the Fog” 0

This is the completed drawing. I decided to shade the background lightly to bring out the highlights of the body of the truck. I also seated the vehicle into the grass, but didn’t add too much vegetation. The remaining parts of the tuck bed, gas tank and rear wheels were put in, but I simplified [...]