I’ve been tinkering with this website pretty consistently over the last three-and-a-half years. Throughout that time, I have maintained interest in ways I could make

In a couple of ways, I consider this post to be somewhat of a do-over. Months ago, I shared a YouTube video on my relatively new channel covering some details
Read more »Apparently, the beginning of April is book publishing time! Last year, I released a book called Pencils and Process. That one took months to write, and was a 150ish page
Read more »I try to be as forthright as possible on this blog about my experiences with art. The site didn’t really start with a focused goal in mind, but over time,
Read more »My free time has been pretty well monopolized recently, first with writing a book, and then with figuring out the ins-and-outs of independent publishing. Now that the book is out
Read more »As you may have seen on the front page or my ongoing forum thread, I published a book recently! It’s something that I’ve vaguely wanted to do for a while,
Read more »It feels weird to say this, but I finished writing a book…and it’s actually published and available now! The book is called Pencils and Process, and it’s available via Amazon
Read more »A few days ago, there was a comment asking about which medium I use. This is a simple question, but a really great one – especially considering I never talk about
Read more »As I’ve mentioned many times on this site, I am a huge fan of Microsoft’s data-crunching solutions. I’ve gained a reputation for it too; when I am about to offer
Read more »As a huge Excel fanatic, over the years I’ve amassed a nice collection of spreadsheets; if you’ve explored this website much, I’m sure you’ve seen graphs from some of them.
Read more »I’ve been tinkering with this website pretty consistently over the last three-and-a-half years. Throughout that time, I have maintained interest in ways I could make
If you’ve followed this blog for long, you may have read me roasting myself about various art-related weaknesses. Every artist, amateur and professional alike, has
In a couple of ways, I consider this post to be somewhat of a do-over. Months ago, I shared a YouTube video on my relatively
I am going to share some art out of order, which isn’t my usual approach. But I thought it would make more sense to jump
I am getting really bad about writing on this blog! I am also not really keeping up with my artwork hobby very well. I have
Way back in April (which feels like it was years ago now somehow), there was a healthcare worker “portraits for heroes” thing going around on
Although you probably wouldn’t be able to tell based on how sporadically I’ve been posting, over the last few months I have wanted to focus
This post is mostly going to be about a portrait I did of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, but I’ll also take a detour
It’s been quite a busy last month or so. The family and I finally made our long-delayed moved to Texas. It’s something that’s been in
It’s taken me quite a while to actually get to the writing portion, but I’m finally sharing the portraits from the most recent giveaway. The
This is a continuation of my post last week about the Witcher Netflix show and game series. In that first post, I discussed the show
Somewhere towards the beginning of the new COVID-19 home quarantine reality, I finally forced myself to sit down and watch The Witcher Netflix series. I’d
It feels like it’s been a while since my last post, but when I looked back, it’s actually only been a couple of weeks. Time
As of today, Amdall Gallery’s new YouTube channel is live! Its main purpose is to share some progression videos; if you’re familiar with my typical
A bit of a delay writing this one, but this post is going to be dedicated to Mother’s Day and sharing some related artwork. It’s
Welcome to the part two continuation of this Mike Patton-related discussion! In the first post, the write-up was centered around musician extraordinaire Mike Patton and
As you can tell from the homepage, Amdall Gallery has a custom portrait raffle going right now. We’ve got about 12 days left on the
My senior year of high school, I became friends with a group of guys who I’ve known multiple decades now (how has it been so
I haven’t discussed the series in a while, but if you came across this blog any time in early 2018, you were probably greeted with
As I was browsing through some old photos looking for something fun to draw, I came across one that gave me a good laugh. It’s
I’m entering a very unusual artwork and post writing phase. If I’ve ever been in this situation before, I really can’t remember.Essentially, I have now
Over the weekend, I decided it was high time for some art-related spring cleaning. I’ve had a few things on my organizational “to do” list
Like so many parents, we’re doing our best to keep the little ones busy as well as ourselves. In an effort to keep myself busy,
Apparently, the beginning of April is book publishing time! Last year, I released a book called Pencils and Process. That one took months to write,
It’s only been about a week and a half or so of social distancing/self-quarantine where we live, but somehow it feels a lot longer. Not
This write-up is going to be about a post-apocalyptic sandbox style video game called Kenshi. But it’s also going to be about sharing art that
Writing about artwork during a global pandemic really isn’t something I expected to be doing at all. Yet here we are in an escalating health
A couple weeks ago, I shared some ramblings about my late discovery of Stranger Things, and how it turns out everyone was right about how
I’ve really been slacking on my usual pattern of art and website posts. In the last two or three months, I’ve only written a couple
This is sort of a belated part two for my last post about holiday portrait gifts. In that write-up, I discussed a colored pencil drawing
In what is apparently becoming somewhat of a tradition, this post is a delayed one. What I mean is, it was actually written at the
As I’ve mentioned in a few previous sports-related posts, I am a huge Dallas Mavericks fan. Although I’ve always loved football, and am (sometimes regrettably)
If my “archive categories” widget is to be believed, at this point I’ve written 115 art-related posts on this website. That’s pretty surprising to me,
It took longer than I thought to finish this write-up, but welcome to part two of a series I started with last week’s post about
June 2020 Update: After about 6 months of daily (or at least nightly) use, the hour hand of the watch appears to have failed. Re-calibrating
I wrote a couple of months ago about an art show called the River Oaks 5x5x5, which I often refer to as the “tiny art”
Lately, I’ve been in a bit of an art re-visitation phase. I have been back into the drawing hobby for over two years at this
A few months ago, during one of our periodic Texas visits, the family and I got a chance to check out the National Videogame Museum
I am often thrown for a loop about the passage of time. I’ve written in many posts here about such and such amount of time
I’ve done a few posts lately somewhat focused on near-term nostalgia, particularly in comparing how my drawings have changed over the last two years. Right
I had to double check because it didn’t seem possible, but it looks like it’s been almost a month since my last drawing. Time really
One of my favorite things about browsing the Internet is how easy it is to randomly discover something new. That could involve stumbling upon an
I generally try to avoid wading into the political on Amdall Gallery. I’ve done it occasionally in the past, like my discussions and data analysis
I still feel that overall I am improving as an artist, which is nice to realize after two years of becoming re-involved in this hobby.
I try to be as forthright as possible on this blog about my experiences with art. The site didn’t really start with a focused goal
I surprised myself a bit following my last post by jumping immediately into another project. I hadn’t planned to do so, but I found myself
Following my brief foray into digital artwork, it felt like time to get back to my usual comfortable pencil-and-paper mode. At this point, I’ve got
Welcome to the grand finale of this series of posts on digital artwork! In the first post, I discussed my past struggle with digital art
In the previous post, I discussed my purchase of a Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 and decision to try digital artwork again. My first experience with
Just over a year ago, I wrote about my first ever attempt at using a tablet and digital pen to draw. I bought an XP-Pen
In my last post, I discussed using Unsplash images as inspiration for artwork. Although I have a ton of backlogged ideas now, and many of
My free time has been pretty well monopolized recently, first with writing a book, and then with figuring out the ins-and-outs of independent publishing. Now
Is it Flavor Town or Flavortown? I’m actually not sure. Unfortunately, I don’t know Guy Fieri, so I can’t ask the Mayor of Flavortown about
As you may have seen on the front page or my ongoing forum thread, I published a book recently! It’s something that I’ve vaguely wanted
It feels weird to say this, but I finished writing a book…and it’s actually published and available now! The book is called Pencils and Process,
Although it doesn’t feel quite so long, it’s been over a month since I’ve written a post. I have actually been furiously writing away elsewhere
At the start of 2018, I finished what has become one of my favorite fiction novel series; The Dark Tower by Stephen King. If you’re
Last fall, I did a sketch of three of the four Ghostbusters. I included Peter Venkman, Ray Stanz, and Egon Spangler…but unfortunately I ran out
At the end of my last post, I mentioned off-hand a few ideas for what I might draw next. I talked about finishing a Dallas
Any time my family and I take a trip to the grocery store or Target, we absolutely have to grab one of those bulky carts
Over the last week or so, I’ve been dealing with a fairly tough cold. As is usually the case, the kids and I all got
Lately, I’ve been playing a game called Pillars of Eternity II quite a bit. Even going back to when I was a kid playing our
My most recent drawing is sort of a random one. I guess most of them are, but this was a very spur-of-the-moment thing. I was
Since getting back into drawing in 2017, I’ve generally been under the impression that most of my artwork has been of my family. I also
I came across a really interesting article a few days ago called How to Be an Artist – 33 Rules to Take you from Clueless
About a year ago, I wrote about my quest for a new smartphone. The general scope of this quest was to satisfy a few parameters;
I’ve been all over the place lately with my sketches, jumping around to varied subjects like Ghostbusters, memes, Pinterest, and Einstein. I always come back
I’ve been thinking about the advertisements on this site quite a bit lately. The purpose of Amdall Gallery has morphed slightly over time, but it’s
Welcome to part two of this series of sketches based on Pinterest art prompts. In part one, I discussed some Pinterest basics and how useful
When I started sharing artwork on this site, eventually I decided to create social media profiles for Amdall Gallery on any platform I could think
This week, I worked on a sketch of legendary hair model Albert Einstein (I hear he also dabbled in some science-related stuff). As I was
The Millennial generation is known for many things, including craft beer, skinny jeans, and “destroying” seemingly every industry (if you believe cynical clickbait articles). As
Back in May, when I was in the middle of a flurry of sketches, I had an idea to draw characters from some of my
Wow, has it really been another entire month since I’ve drawn anything? Sort of a surprising realization, because it feels like I was just writing
I haven’t been drawing much lately, which is pretty apparent looking at the site’s front page. It’s kind of an odd coincidence, but right around
It’s a little hard to believe, but it’s been a year now since I rebooted Amdall Gallery and really got rolling on this artwork and
When I was little, I absolutely loved dinosaurs. I know most kids do, but I was sort of obsessed with them. I was all about
It seems like I haven’t posted much lately, which is confirmed when I look at the monthly archive counts on my sidebar. Over the last
As you can see from the title, this site was nominated for a Liebster Award, which is given to blogs by other bloggers. So, right
At the end of last month, we wrapped up a custom portrait giveaway with some pretty solid participation. The winner sent me a photo she
This post will be a delayed publication; most likely you’re reading it in July, but everything here is actually from June. Not that it matters,
A couple months ago, I did some sketches that took their inspiration from the many “historical photo” Twitter accounts out there. One was a not-very-accurate
The NBA draft was Thursday night, and I’ve been obsessing about it for at least a week. The 2018 draft was considered by many to
One of my favorite shows as a kid was Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K). If you’re not familiar with it, MST3K was basically a show
This weekend, I made my first clumsy attempt at digital art. And over the last couple months, I’ve been almost exclusively drawing fictional characters from
I am generally very interested in tech-related things, and love to waste money on gadgets. I am the type of person who will have a
A few days ago, there was a comment asking about which medium I use. This is a simple question, but a really great one – especially
There will be some spoilers, so be warned. If you’re just here for art, scroll to the end. This is a game mostly about the
Welcome to part two of this run of drawings from The Fifth Element. In the first one, I covered some basics from the film and
Last week, I did a sketch from one of my favorite movies, the original Karate Kid. I like how the drawing turned out, but the
I’ve been home sick for a few days, and felt a bit like drawing…unfortunately, I couldn’t think of anything, so I just lounged around instead.
As I’ve mentioned many times on this site, I am a huge fan of Microsoft’s data-crunching solutions. I’ve gained a reputation for it too; when
When we were visiting family Mother’s Day weekend, I was talking to my sister about something related to drawing. I asked her if there was
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about one of my favorite Dallas Cowboys players of all-time, who recently announced his retirement. Jason
As I was browsing around a few days ago, I came across this article about how to approach handshakes at work when someone (client, business
“The secret is in the dirt.” – Ben Hogan, responding to questions about the secret to his golf swing. He was well-known for his striking
I’m sure I’ve said this in many other posts…but sometimes drawings work out, and sometimes they just don’t happen the way you want. Unfortunately, I
Back in December 2017, before I switched over to color drawings, I sketched a scene with my three favorite characters from Star Trek. It featured
Continuing on with the second post in a two part series, the subject of this one is guitar legend Jimi Hendrix. In the first post,
It seems I’m always on the search for art subjects lately. And since I can be somewhat creatively limited when it comes to drawing, the