I was honored to draw the cover art for Almost Finished: A Father’s Letters to his Daughter by Justine Bowen-Jones. I loved the touching feel this picture of father and his daughter silhouetted on the beach in early evening has. I used charcoal on a medium grained paper to somewhat force myself to lose distracting [...]
One of my drawings, Sturdevant, has been recently featured as the cover art for a lovely choral piece of music. You can see the online version and learn more about the music here: http://www.elizabethalexander.com/works/one-more-redeemer
Following the familiar theme in this drawing, I am striving to get the deepest value saturation in order to make the highlights pop. By laying a wash of charcoal and burnishing with the blackest graphite I know of, the Kimberly 9xxb, I can almost get a dark as black as charcoal that still melds with [...]
The glossy sheen the hair on the neck creates a neat rippling effect. It’s a beautiful, clean, and wonderfully natural look. However, this look is very difficult to give justice using graphite as a medium. I must get enough contrast to make the off-white of the paper look like reflected sun. I need a little help [...]
Continuing the shading process down the muzzle, I also work on the leather straps of the bridle and the beginnings of the upper neck . Leather, especially shiny, yet worn leather, requires some intricate work to pull off the look. You tend to think of minor elements of a drawing are more or less one [...]
Here I continue down the muzzle, again reaching for very deep darks for the necessary contrast this drawing demands. The whitest I can get is the white of the paper so those blacks need to be fully saturated. Again I utilize the Kimberly 9xxb to burnish over a wash of charcoal. This horse’s white star [...]
Since I am right handed, I generally begin shading a picture from the upper left of a drawing and work my way down and to the right. Often I need to rework areas, but I try to limit how much my hands will come into contact with shaded areas. Even with a paper shield, smudging [...]
Every time I receive a commission, it inevitably comes with a back story. Most often, someone will have a portrait commissioned to commemorate a special occasion. Whether that be a new addition to a family, a memorable moment capturing the essence of a childhood, or a wedding, an anniversary, or a posthumous memorial. They are [...]
I’ve been somewhat distracted lately and allowed this painting to be put on my back burner while I worked on other projects. However, I focused some attention on the canvas this morning and finally finished. I could add a few more glazes to get a more refined and realistic painting, but I prefer to leave [...]
When applying glazes, I usually wait for the underlying paint to be more or less dry. I often use liquin as a medium which hastens drying time a little bit, but it does generally take a few days to get to the point where I am comfortable in applying a thin even coat of liquin [...]
