KONG

It is no secret that one of my favourite things to do is to sit and relax with family and friends on the front porch. Some days I sit and play guitar or draw and paint. Most of the time I draw and paint....sometimes something good comes out.

Kong is one of those good things. Done over my mornings coffee, for two days, he is the results and not bad results at that. 

Although it is always time well spent, this time was productive and well spent. Taking the time to enjoy, and appreciate the simple things in life is something we should all do. Drawing doesn't really get much simpler than a 2B pencil and a piece of paper..........and sitting on the porch enjoying the company of family and friends is something to really appreciate, and when I can combine the two with coffee.........it is heaven. 

CROW

Some days you just sit down and draw, had the most marvelous time with this, just a pencil, a kneaded erasure and a sheet of paper.......

This drawing is for sale, please email for information

SIMPLE PLEASURES

Well, it is no secret that my favourite medium to use is the stoic and oft forgotten pencil.......the workhorse of what we do. I almost hardly ever pick one up for anything other than to layout a painting or do a rough much anymore, but the other day decided I want to do a pencil piece, so I scrapped everything I had on the table and went to just draw. Draw for the simple pleasure of it.

I grabbed a sheet of 14 X 17 Strathmore 300 Series Bristol a 2B pencil my little pocket knife, a brass bullet sharpener ( for fine line sharpening ) and a kneaded erasure, and I just sat down, closed my eyes and started to draw, and this is what came out...

MORE PENCIL FUN

Just relaxing the other day and doing a fun little pencil piece..........just to do a pencil piece

A LITTLE NOSTALGIA

It is no real secret........... I love doing pencil drawings, to me the pencil is the KING of all traditional art tools. I have just recently ( today ) finished a drawing that brings back a lot of memories and nostalgia as it were to my brain.

In college, I had a studio class where we were not allowed to use a pencil sharpener. We had to use a knife to sharpen our pencils, and nearly thirty years later, I tried it again..........it is pretty cool, and am not sure why I ever stopped doing this.

What got me to do it again was sort of a silly little thing I saw on Facebook and was honestly quite happy to obtain as well ( thanks Brian ). It was an old Tarzan pocket knife. More so than just an old Tarzan pocket knife, it is exactly like my art hero Frank Frazetta  used to sharpen his pencils...

Franks knife
photo Doc Dave

Once I got the knife ( actually two of them ) a little drawing thing came up in which I got the opportunity to do a drawing of Vampirella......something I always wanted to do, but never really had the time nor inclination to do, but now seemed to be a good time to do so, AND what better way to do her than to do a pencil drawing and to try something I hadn't done in years as well as a sort of homage to tradition and to do her in the way that her creator did.......... I got out my Tarzan pocket knife and sharpened my pencil. I did use a 2B for this and not a 3B .

Here is what I learned along the way: 

when sharpening a pencil with a knife, you retain more lead if you leave it with a more or less blunt tip. 

the blunt tip gives you a softer ore organic line and as you use the pencil, you tend to make sharp spots on it for more finer detaily parts

the softer more organic line is easier to erase and smudge........which works well with the way I draw

the only real thing I didn't like was that if I wanted a really REALLY sharp point I would have to work a bit harder at getting it by scraping the lead down and I am a bit too lazy to do that a lot, so I went back to my brass bullet and another pencil and sharpened it for a fine point.

Will I do this again.........not really sure, but maybe, but it was fun to go back to something I hadn't done in years, and to sort of pay tribute to a Master.

the tools of the trade

the final piece

DARKE HUNTS

Here is a little bin of fun in a video format of me starting on the pencils for one of the illustrations to the new book project, as you will see it is in real time so what you see is what actually came out and how long it took to get that far.

On a sad note, if I post any more videos, there will be no sound. This really sort of sux since I like loud music when I work, but I keep getting flagged for the music when I upload it to youtube, and as an artist I don't want to be in a copyright violation, even tho I do post and acknowledge who I am listening to. In this clip you will hear a bit of Dan Baird, from his album Buffalo Nickel  and now rockin the hell out of us with great tunes in HOMEMADE SIN!!

After about 40 seconds the sound goes off .......... ya'll missed out on a great song

PENCIL FUN

It is pretty much well known that I love the pencil, it is the King Daddy of  all the media for me, and sadly, I rarely use it except to do roughs, and doodles, but every once in a while I have the opportunity to just sit down and play........here is one of those moments from this past weekend.

LIZARD QUEEN

14 X 17 

pencil on Bristol

$50.00

STORY BOARDS ...HATMAN 3

Just recently a friend of mine got in touch with me about a project he was working on and asked me if I could lend a bit of a hand...the answer of course was yes.


He was working on a film project of his own production HATMAN and on the 3rd installment and wanted to know if I could story board it to help with shots and angles and such.storyboarding.... so we sat down one day in Studio B ( the porch ) and discussed the project and as we talked I doodled out the scenes he had scripted out.

After getting the initial pages down, over the next few days I sat down and redrew the panels with a little more finish to them as well as change the format from vertical..which is what I am used to doing mostly illustration.... to horizontal  fro more of a film look so that he could plan his shots a bit better and have it closer to the screen image.

 

Story boards are fun and quite similar to comic work. They can be as simple as you would like or s complex and complete..........I guess it all really depends on who you are working with and what they want in all honesty. Black and White or colour  as well.

I personally cannot wait to see the finished production  and had so much fun doing these, I hope it goes on and I get to do more!!! Here is part 2 of Hatman for you to see...........

 

IN PRAISE OF THE MIGHTY PENCIL

I  personally cannot say enough about this amazing tool. It is the King Daddy of all the media in my book and I shamefully do not use it enough. I love what can be done with it...........whether it be a simple sketch or doodle.

the beginnings of something else like an ink, watercolour or painting.....

or the full on in your face drawing....................here is the ol' boy at work, and yes he is a work horse, do not deny the might of a pencil or what can be done with one. It is where every great work of art starts, and in a lot of cases ends. Drawing is the foundation of all the arts.

Hooray for the mighty pencil.
...........................................................................

( I also just found out my camera has a video option, so look out.......this is the first of more to come )

SNAIL GIRLS

For those of you who are on my Facebook you are or maybe aware of my on going SNAIL GIRLS  drawings, but for those of you not on FB with me or are unaware of the series I am going to recap a little bit. ONe day I sat down with my sketchbook and doodled out a little thing of a faerie riding on the back of a snail sort of like  bull riding at a rodeo, I like it so much that I found a small piece ( scrap ) of paper that I had lying about and quickly did an ink thing of it:

....and here she is, the "first" Snail Girl. I believe I drew her in 2010.

At some point in the past year I was sitting in my living room ( aka Studio B ) and had messed up a drawing that I was working on, and as I sat there tore it up as usual, but then as I was sitting there looking at the torn paper, I drew a girl talking with a snail:

It was a fun thing to do, and I liked the image, for me it was sort of innocent a girl talking with a snail. After I a while I did another and another. All were done on torn sheets of paper of messed up drawings, and as my collection of Snail Girls grew I decided to keep the torn sheets of paper and have them on hand for the purpose of doing Snail Girls, this envelope sits by my chair in Studio B and is there ready and waiting for the next one to appear:

Here is an example of the approximate size of the drawings:

...and a few more closer images of the girls as well as an early family portrait:

As I continue to do these and looking back at them, I realized there is some sort of conversation going on between these two friends, and in realizing this, it became all the more important to me to continue with this until the conversation was over. At first it was for me about getting the body posture right, balancing the blacks and whites to where one did not over power the other, but now it is more about keeping the friends together...........sort of silly I know, but I like it.

I have to mention that all the drawings are done to the shape of the paper and not tearing the paper to fit the drawing, that would be cheating. The shape of the paper helps to determine what is being said in the drawing. The more of these I do, the more intense the conversation becomes in trying to find a posture or pose that I haven't done before..........who likes to repeat themselves in a conversation.

At the top of this I posted the "first" snail girl, well in cleaning out some things and trying to tidy up the place I found this:

This is the actual First of the SNAIL GIRL images, she was done in 2004, six years before the other First. As you see in the first to images the gals have wings and are in a sort of ironic action pose...........bull riding a snail and surfing on a snail, just something that leans towards my sense of humor, but as I went on they changed, no wings and more of an equality between them.

Anyway, this is some of what comes out in the evenings as I kick back and chillax to end my day. In the next few posts, I will be going to put up a few of the pieces that come out as I wind down and relax in the evenings before going to bed............or on the nights that I can't sleep and get up and try to get sleepy.

A little bit of INK-site into my process

The other day I received a few pages in the ol' E-mail for a Werewolf story that I was asked to do some illustrations for, and thought to myself, this would be a good time to go into a bit of my process for doing the pictures. There is no surprises here, or any ground breaking information, nor any divulging of any secrets.....it is read and think..........or at lest in my case read and doodle out what pops into my head as I read.

Any way, as I said, got a few pages of text that contained scenes for the illustrations and I printed them out to read. I know you don't have to do this and can read the words right off the computer screen, but I am really sort of old fashioned and like having paper in my hands. I also like to tote the things around with me and get to them as my schedule allows. If it is nice, I like to  sit on my porch and do this, or in some cases if  I have an appointment I carry them with me and do it whilst I wait. 

{ The pages were really good for me and the way I like to work as well, there was detail, but just enough to give me the impressions of the illustrations, but also not so much as to limit what I see .......... I will work with whatever is presented me, but really like this combination and the freedom of interpretation }

The printed page also allows me to doodle right on the page as I read.............

........I am pretty sure there are programs and what not that allow you to do this as well, but like I said........I like paper in my hands.

So, now I have my initial doodle and idea down on the PAPER, I move onto a more "tighter" rough and play with the composition more if I feel the basic idea needs improvement ( or if I am told to by an AD or whomever I happen to be working for at the time ).....

... in the above photo I took my original idea and played with it some more. In this case I wasn't totally happy with what I jotted down, it didn't quite "feel" like the scene to me, so I played and felt I had it in the bottom thumbnail  and proceeded to move on...

The two doodles in the boxes are the ideas I went with to move onto my inking .... (I will talk a bit about the other two in a few when we scroll down to it) ........ the bottom one is really fairly close to the original concept I scribbled onto the page with the text, and as you may notice the other has changed from the initial rough to more like the secondary doodles. From here I went on to do a bit of inking.........

... and ...

..........so I was really happy with the drawing and the inking of the second picture here, but still felt something wasn't right with the top one.......not too bad of a drawing in itself, but really sort of sucked when I looked at the She-woof I did just after, so I went back and re-read the text and found a clue...

( CLUE )

... once I found my clue, I went back to my paper and did some more sketching...........remember the other two drawings on the page.....

I moved the thing from her wrist to her waist sort of like my clue said, rearranged her on the page and bingo, I had something I liked better and felt right as well. 

So now that I am feeling better I drew out the image from the bottom left onto a piece of bristol and have my pencil ready to ink............

.......which we'll get to later, but until then that is my process, and as I said there is nothing ground breaking in it, just good basic reading and comprehention and translating what I read into a picture....ILLUSTRATION!!!

IT GOES WITH THE COFFEE

I am not sure what anyone else does with their mornings coffee, but for me, I like to sit down and do a little doodling and sometimes you just come up with something fun.

Well I had been playing around with a few ideas for a Vampirella image, and had a couple of sketches laying about:

...........and the next thing you know, I am sort of hanging out on the couch, watching Reservoir Dogs and by the end of the movie, I have this sitting in my lap:

It was a really fun morning, good movie, COFFEE, and a nice little pencil piece!!

BIG BONE

Here is a little pencil thing I did a month or so ago, it is I think 14 X 17. Still in need of a scanner so unfortunately the photo is really all I have right now...........

Tarzan Yell's

A while back I made a post about Life is a Taboret, and had a movie quote in the post and turned it into a giveaway. Guess the movie the line is from win a drawing, a drawing drawing.

The winner of the drawing was Carlos Pereira Da Silva, and I must appologize to Carlos for the delay in getting to this, but life has a way of doing this, so Carlos I am sorry for not getting the image to you sooner, please forgive me for this.

Part of the life getting in the way is also a scanner that has decided to die on me and leave me without means of getting good digital images of some of my images. So here is a rather bad photo of Carlos' drawing.

With the advent of me being scannerless, I will be posting some drawings and paintings to help offset the expense of getting a new scanner, ( I am looking at a bigger one )or if you would like, I am always open and willing to do a commission of two or three as they come along.

Evening Sketches

I have publicly stated so many times about my compulsion to just sketch or doodle.....I can't  help it, it is an ithc that I have to scratch one way or another. Most recently I have been scratching the itch in what I feel is a more productive way.

Instead of just randomly doodling a hand or a leg, face or what have you, I have been trying to do full sketches more in the vein of getting a more refined rough done for a painting or ink, anything that would lend itself to a bigger and better finished image. The forementioned method of doing head, hands, and feet ( great band with Albert Lee as well ) is productive, but I am wanting something a little bit more from the time spent. Now I haven't stopped doing that, but am spending less time on it.

These few sketches here, I've done late in the evening, just kicking back and relaxing. They have mainly been done before turning in for the evening. They have honestly helped me to sleep better at night as well. They have really relaxed the mind and body and gotten me some good doodles as well.

Axe guy, possibly a figure for a battle scene, could be another Conan, who knows but nice fellow.

Kull, he is floating but is obviously standing on something, and I will figure that out at somepoint, I like the attitude of the pose and will find a fitting background for him ................suggestions always welcome if you like.

The Creature...........yes our old friend and in my opinion the best movie of the classic horror films. He has an environment, and I am torn between doing an ink on this one or an oil. I am not sure which, the layout really lends itself to the ink, but see the painting as well. I might do both although I really don't like to do that. Not sure why, I guess I feel ......done it time to move on and get something new, but with this guy, I really might do both. Voice an opinion if you want, would love the help.

THE EYES OF THE BEHOLDER

Here is a quick pencil I just finished this morning, for a contest over on the ArtOrder forum.

The Beholder.

I had started this one around 8:30 in the morning, and completed it by roughly 11 a.m. It was honestly a good time, I had not sat and just drawn like that in a long time, and just had a blast with it. Might have to make it a regular thing.

MAHAR SACRIFICE

 Ok, well its been awhile since I had spoken about this project............so long in fact that I had almost forgotten I had planned to do it. The project was my AT THE EARTH'S CORE portfolio, and yes it still is in the works. I had had a few things come up that I had to put aside the personal projects for, but now I am winding down on those and getting back to the CORE  of things, and wanted to show a CORE sample to let anyone who might have been interested in this that I have gotten back to work on it.

I know that originally this project was intended to be in ink, well that sort of changed last night when I sat down in the living room and started to draw..............this came out, and I LIKED it. So while sitting there watching Jules Vernes the Mysterious Island and hanging out with my family I decided that the pencil 'folio would be just as cool as doing an ink and so............the AT THE EARTH'S CORE portfolio will still consist of 6 black and white images and one colour, but the B&W stuff will now be pencil.

a Dino doodle

This little guy was done  while I sat at my table at Rush Fest, and is a one sharpener. Once I had set up and was waiting for folks to come by, I pulled out the ol' 11 X 14 pad of paper and it only had one sheet left in it so I figured I 'd better make the most of it, so this is what came out.

He's only $45.00.

THE BELL RINGERS DANCE

This started out as a doodle, and then became a rough for a painting I still intend to do, but in the process somewhere along the way I felt like doing it in pencil as well. Althought the painting will be similar............it will be done slightly different and more like the original doodle. Once the painting is done I will post the doodle as well.

14 X 17 on Bristol

$120.00

Llama Fashions

This past weekend I got to spend time with my brother and his family as my niece Caroline, participated in a 4H competition involving Llamas. It was a blast!!, and gave me the opportunity to view and sketch an animal that I never would have considered drawing.

The Llama is a camelid.....which is to say a member of the camel family, which includes camels (no brainer there), alpacas, and dromedaries. The llama is the South American version of the camel as it were. They were used as pack animals by the Incas, you can click on the link and read more about them if you want to.

The Llamas all had fabulous cuts or coiffures as a fashion statement as well as a way to dispence heat. These cuts also made for more fun in drawing since I could come up with my own names for the cuts and differentiate the animals by other means than just colour.