Amdall Gallery

Here’s every post I’ve ever shared, in chronological order, from Amdall Gallery. Thought it might be nice to have this archive somewhere on the site since I’ve limited the amount of posts showing on the front page.

Art Catalog App and Stat Dashboards (1/24/2026) - I have long enjoyed tinkering around the edges of the technology and software world. I haven't shared much on this site lately other than paintings, but over the past year or so, I have been messing around with some of the "low code"/"no code" app development solutions that are available.… Read More

Final Fantasy VI Painting | Video Games Inspiring Art (1/18/2026) - Continuing a series of oil paintings inspired by my favorite classic SNES era games, this piece features characters from Final Fantasy VI (Final Fantasy III in the US). I painted a few of the protagonists; Shadow, Terra, Mog the Moogle, and Locke. There were others I wanted to include, but… Read More

Nature Scene Backgrounds in Portraits (12/26/2025) - I have long been fond of including nature scene backgrounds in my portrait oil paintings. I think this preoccupation started with my enjoyment of Bob Ross' Joy of Painting; like with many painters, his show provided some inspiration for me to start painting in the first place. He always made… Read More

Secret of Mana Painting | Game Art in My Style (12/21/2025) - I recently painted the characters from the classic SNES game Secret of Mana - this was such a fun project, but definitely came with some challenges. The original game is one of my all-time favorites and triggers fond memories, particularly when it comes to the music. The game's art featured… Read More

Planning for a Larger Oil Painting (11/11/2025) - I don't typically plan much when I paint - I prefer just finding a reference or concept, throwing some textured paper onto my easel, and diving right in. However, I was given some large canvasses, and so I started thinking about what I might want to do with them. My… Read More

Skeleton Pirate Painting (10/18/2025) - This oil painting of a skeleton pirate was a commission earlier in the year (or maybe it was even at the end of 2024) that I thoroughly enjoyed. I tend to stick with specific themes and subjects, mostly in alignment with both things I enjoy creating and specific concepts I… Read More

Three Year Painting Anniversary (10/10/2025) - It's hard to believe it's already been three years since I started learning to paint! I first picked up a brush back in September 2022, and since then I've painted 260 portraits. Although my pace has slowed considerably from that somewhat insane first year pace (averaging more than 10 a… Read More

Painting Bright Light | Woman’s Backlit Silhouette (9/7/2025) - I continue to be fascinated with light in oil painting. Shadows, reflection, light sources - it’s all so interesting to experiment with. In this portrait, I wanted to paint a bright light behind the subject and attempt some of the blue and yellow highlights that can accent the edges of… Read More

Ragamuffin Cat in a Basket Oil Painting (4/12/2025) - Although I mostly focus on portraits of people, I also practice animals occasionally. I’ve mostly painted dogs and cats, and the most frequent professional model I use is our family cat. The featured oil painting in this post is of our little Ragamuffin cat sitting in a basket. This was… Read More

Practicing Specific Weaknesses | Portrait Oil Painting (3/1/2025) - I tend to practice and repeat specific themes when it comes to portrait painting. This seems to manifest itself most often with concepts or features that I view as weaker areas. Earlier in my painting journey, probably for the first 150 or so oil paintings, I honestly really needed to… Read More

Portrait Oil Painting | Step by Step Walkthrough (1/18/2025) - This post features a step by step walkthrough of my portrait oil painting approach. Although I've shared a few walkthrough videos on YouTube of my process, I wanted to create something that was a bit more sequential and organized, as well as a bit longer, to really capture how I… Read More

Cotton vs Linen Paper for Oil Painting (1/15/2025) - The vast majority of my oil paintings are done on Strathmore 400 series oil paper, which is a treated linen that feels somewhat rigid like canvass. I am very much a creature of habit, so part of it is that I'm used to how it feels and how paint acts… Read More

Dark and Near Black Color Blends in Oil Painting (1/14/2025) - I had an itch to get some practice with dark oil painting color blends, partially inspired by wanting to improve on a prior portrait painting that featured tons of darkness with small bright highlights. I thought I’d take a shot at similar concepts again, really pushing myself to practice some… Read More

Postcard Art Exhibit Oil Painting for the 2024 Texas Show (1/13/2025) - One of the painting highlights of 2024 for me was getting to participate in the Postcard Art Exhibit (PAE). It's a charity event that is hosted in different locations, and the one last year was fairly close to me in McKinney, Texas benefiting the Millhouse Foundation. I don’t have much… Read More

Starting Paintings with Background Wash or Base Layer (1/12/2025) - I'm currently experiencing an internal struggle with the start of my process. Most artists I follow start their oil paintings with a background wash or base layer of color, which helps eliminate the bright white from their canvass or paper and potentially makes blending easier. But, for most of my… Read More

Figure Poses and Light on Fabric in Oil Portraits (1/11/2025) - Sometimes I just paint without any specific reason or goal, but with this piece I actually had a couple specific things I wanted to practice. I was talking with some colleagues about my appreciation for John Singer Sargent’s paintings, particularly Lady Agnew of Locknaw. I love the way Sargent captured… Read More

Expressive Eyes and Subtlety in Portrait Painting (1/11/2025) - Almost from the start of my quest to learn to paint with oils, I've been captivated by expressive eyes in portraits. It's something I'm drawn to just when I'm admiring paintings by other artists, so I naturally gravitated to wanting to learn how to emulate the same effect. Unfortunately for… Read More

Oil Painting of Sunlight Through a Window (1/11/2025) - I think some of my best paintings come from a very loose approach and relaxed mindset. I can’t always achieve that, but I love when it does come together like that. In this piece, I really wanted to explore some bright and interesting color mixing, pushing on yellows and greens… Read More

Woman in Green Dress Oil Painting (12/2/2024) - The subject of this post is another figure study on 12 x 12 oil paper. I'll follow my standard format here, which is to share an image of the painting, the Instagram time lapse, and some verbiage specific to the piece. Then, I'll embed the YouTube discussion video, including another… Read More

Farm Scene Oil Painting, Woman on Sitting on the Ground (10/6/2024) - The subject of this post is another figure study on 12 x 12 oil paper. I'll follow my standard format here, which is to share an image of the painting, the Instagram time lapse, and some verbiage specific to the piece. Then, I'll embed the YouTube discussion video, including another… Read More

Figure Study with Natural Subject Stance (2/27/2024) - This painting is one of my favorites - it features a woman in a nature scene that has a number of aspects that are appealing to me just from an art-enjoyment standpoint. I like the figure pose and natural standing position the subject has, as well as the impressionist-inspired landscape… Read More

Bright Light Depiction in Oil Painting (1/27/2024) - My latest painting is another figure study on 12 x 12 oil paper. With this one, I tried to really emphasize a bright light source behind the subject. I think I was able to accomplish this for the most part, but I can see it's something I need to practice… Read More

Last Painting of 2023, Oil on Paper (1/7/2024) - Perhaps I've finally found the solution to my massive blog post backlog. As I mentioned in my last post, I'm almost comically behind on sharing art here - about 8 months and 110ish paintings at this point. It's such an odd notion, considering how much of a proponent of blogging… Read More

Redoing an Old Portrait, May 2023 Painting (12/30/2023) - Going back in time to May 2023, here is an oil painting I did around that time based on when it was shared to the Amdall Gallery Instagram. This post will include a static image of the piece, an embed of the time lapse video, and then some verbiage from… Read More

Video Game Characters, March 2023 Portrait (11/19/2023) - Going back in time to March 2023, here is an oil painting I did around that time based on when it was shared to the Amdall Gallery Instagram. It included a collection of game characters, including Link, Zelda, Pikachu, Tom Nook, and Minecraft Steve. This post will include a static… Read More

Purple Hair Woman, March 2023 Portrait (11/19/2023) - Going back in time to March 2023, here is an oil painting I did around that time based on when it was shared to the Amdall Gallery Instagram. This post will include a static image of the piece, an embed of the time lapse video, and then some verbiage from… Read More

Saved Side Profile, March Oil Painting (10/6/2023) - Going back in time to March 2023, here is an oil painting I did around that time based on when it was shared to the Amdall Gallery Instagram. This post will include a static image of the piece, an embed of the time lapse video, and then some verbiage from… Read More

Yellow Shirt Guy, March Oil Painting (10/6/2023) - Going back in time to March 2023, here is an oil painting I did around that time based on when it was shared to the Amdall Gallery Instagram. This post will include a static image of the piece, an embed of the time lapse video, and then some verbiage from… Read More

Late February Oil Paintings (9/29/2023) - I admit, my idea of making posts simpler/shorter to catch up on sharing paintings did not at al work. I'm about 70 paintings behind, which is a deficit that's only increasing. So, I'm going to try some batches of paintings again. I can probably group some based on when they… Read More

Woman on Speakerphone Portrait (8/6/2023) - https://www.instagram.com/p/CpEYSpVDAkf/  It's kind of interesting to look back at this portrait. It was my 49th oil painting, which at the time of writing this, was 64 paintings ago. It's kind of wild to think I'm that far behind in blogging - this was done in February, and I've painted more… Read More

Portrait of an Older Guy Pondering (7/20/2023) - https://www.instagram.com/p/Co2WyQsDz0F/ I'm so incredibly far behind now in sharing paintings, and it seems like there's not much I can do to address it. I've tried batching multiple into one post, and I've tried simplifying my posts as well. But it just seems I am vastly more interested in painting than… Read More

A Sad Expression, Portrait Oil Painting (6/11/2023) - https://www.instagram.com/p/Co0MP6cjnzs/ Around the time of this painting, I was thinking about how often I paint similar things. As you can tell from a quite browse of this site, I pretty consistently share head and shoulders portraits of people. Occasionally, I'll branch out into a figure study, a pet, or even… Read More

Portrait of Lady in a Dark Room (5/25/2023) - https://www.instagram.com/p/CosPOVUDm9K/ This painting of a woman in a dark room is another portrait study in my efforts to practice specific areas that aren't my strongest. There are a few aspects of portrait painting that come to mind, but one in particular goes back even to my colored pencil days. I've… Read More

Jon Amdall Self Portrait (5/24/2023) - It might be sort of weird how I'm phrasing this title - a "Jon Amdall Self Portrait"...painted by Jon Amdall...written by Jon Amdall. That's a lot of weird third person references. But, since it's the latest painting I've done of myself, and I'd kind of like to index this thing… Read More

Relaxed Pose Capstone Figure Painting (5/23/2023) - https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cohul96jrjx/ Relaxed Post Figure Painting, oil on paper. When I started this painting, I had some vague notions of treating it sort of like a capstone project. Although I've done over 80 paintings now, at the point in time when I painted this one, I had done somewhere in the… Read More

Lady with Sunflowers Oil Painting (5/20/2023) - https://www.instagram.com/p/CoPuAXzjUvF/ I might say this too often, but the oil painting featured in this post seems to represent somewhat of a milestone for me. It's of a lady with sunflowers behind her, and is another attempt at a partial figure study rather than the usual head-and-shoulders portrait I tend to… Read More

Mike Patton Portrait Oil Painting (5/19/2023) - https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cnr2ybHhDTP/ Mike Patton, oil on paper. The subject of this post is an oil painting I did of my all-time favorite musician Mike Patton. Patton is a man of many bands and projects, including Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Fantomas, Tomahawk, and quite a few more. I've drawn him in… Read More

Not Quite Taylor Swift, a Portrait Attempt (5/18/2023) - https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cn-Ey2HDClM/ Almost Taylor Swift, oil on paper. The subject of this post's oil painting is the second of two requests from my kids. This time, it was an attempt at a portrait of Taylor Swift. She's one of their favorites, even more so since her recent album came out. Their… Read More

Dua Lipa Portrait Oil Painting (5/17/2023) - https://www.instagram.com/reel/CoA7OFHjxIb/ Dua Lipa, oil on paper. The subject of this post is an oil painting I did by request of my kids - it's a portrait of one of their favorite musicians Dua Lipa. She has a couple of songs they really love, specifically Don't Start Now and Levitating are… Read More

Oil Painting Blog Catch Up – Two Paths (5/16/2023) - I've mentioned on a few blog posts over the last few months how far behind I am sharing artwork. This has been a continuously building situation since I started painting in October - but I'm not sure I could say it's necessarily a terrible thing. I'll explain what I mean… Read More

Contributing to Online Ecosystems You Value (4/19/2023) - I've been thinking a lot lately about how I value different technological tools I have at my disposal, particularly those large scale online services I use. And a natural follow up thought is about contributing to those online ecosystems I actually value. For a long time, I've held to the… Read More

Hiring Portrait Models for Art Reference Photos (4/1/2023) - This post is broadly about reference images and where to get them, but really the purpose is to discuss my first experience actually paying someone to pose for painting references. Actually hiring portrait models for art reference photos, which seemed intimidating, but in reality was quite a nice experience. I've… Read More

Initial Structure Importance Despite Oil Paint’s Flexibility (3/28/2023) - Angle and line misalignments. Brown lines are actual alignments, red lined tilts would have looked more natural. Angle improved slightly as I progressed, but it never fully recovered. This post is going to be about the importance of a painting's initial structure. Basically, how the build and forms that you… Read More

Composition and Color in Portrait Painting (3/12/2023) - With this post, I want to talk a little bit about painting composition and color. At the point in time when I did this painting, which was a couple months and almost 30 paintings ago now, I was watching a massive amount of videos from expert artists to try to… Read More

New Years 2023 Portrait Painting Giveaway (12/27/2022) - My last custom portrait giveaway was several months ago, but a lot has changed for me in the art realm since then. With previous giveaways, these portraits have all been done using colored pencils. But a couple of months ago, I started trying to learn how to use oil paints.… Read More

Melina Elden Ring Oil Painting (12/14/2022) - This post is centered around an oil painting of a character from Elden Ring named Melina, who acts as a guide for the player during the course of the game. She's a fascinating and mysterious character in one of the best games I've ever played. But, since I've already discussed… Read More

Poll: How do you digitize your artwork? (12/5/2022) - https://poll.fm/11253040 Buried at the end of my last post, I posed the question, “How do you digitize your artwork?” I embedded a crowdsignal poll with some options that came to mind, which actually represent things I've considered. Since I started back into the art hobby about five years ago, I've… Read More

Portrait of Morrigan from Dragon Age (11/30/2022) - The next artwork in my recent parade of oil paintings takes us back to the topic of video games, which is not an unusual one for me. However, this time I've painted something related to the Dragon Age series, which hasn't been a topic of any of my fan art… Read More

Underpainting Practice – Andre the Giant (11/26/2022) - As I discussed in my last post, I'm making an effort to push myself more when it comes to artwork. A huge part of that obviously is trying oil painting for the first time around two months ago. But I am also trying to flex some artistic muscles that I… Read More

Holocaust Survivor Portraits, Remembrance Display (11/19/2022) - Recently, I was approached by a co-worker to ask if I would help out with a display featuring Holocaust survivor portraits for an event called Unity Day. She had heard through the grapevine about my art hobby, and thought it might be good to team up for some portraits and… Read More

Size Constraints on a Princess Bride Painting (11/10/2022) - With my 9th painting, I ran into a bit of a conundrum and drove home a good lesson for myself. To this point, I feel like I had shown a pretty steady improvement in my paintings. They certainly weren’t masterpieces, but I was encouraged by the practice showing tangible results.… Read More

High Contrast Challenge – Antje Traue Portrait (11/9/2022) - As I continue on clearing my backlog of paintings that have yet to be shared, now I've come to the fourth of five paintings done during a holiday weekend in October. This one in particular was focused on really pushing for a high contrast/heavy shadow challenge. Last year, I did… Read More

Portrait of Comedian Eric Andre (11/4/2022) - This post continues the discussion of a wild painting weekend I had in October, during which I somehow churned through five paintings. As I've mentioned, this is not at all something I set out to do specifically; I just finished one, found I wanted to paint more, so I kept… Read More

Bob Ross Style Landscape Painting (11/2/2022) - This post will be an interesting one, at least from my perspective. If you've browsed this site, you can see pretty quickly that I'm all about portraits. Usually head-and-shoulder views of people, but sometimes animals or other scenes featuring a human being in some way. But this writeup is actually… Read More

Amdall Girls Painting – First Solvent Use (10/17/2022) - A few weeks ago, I finally made the leap to attempt painting for the first time. I've long admired the "painterly" look across the different mediums, particularly the textures and qualities produced by oil paints. It's been a long term goals to learn, but had always seemed like something I'd… Read More

Drawing from Stock Photos and Memes (10/11/2022) - I've talked about my affinity for stock photos on many occasions. In previous posts, I've written about royalty free images, photo spamming on social media, and my general love of memes (which tend to lean heavily on stock photos). I just find these images to be very appealing from a… Read More

Dirk Nowitzki Portrait with Trophy (10/7/2022) - This is going to be yet another piece of artwork dedicated to Dallas Mavericks legend Dirk Nowitzki. Considering this is now the fourth drawing I've done of Dirk, I guess it's safe to say I've long been a huge fan of his. I grew up watching the Mavs, and especially… Read More

First Attempt at Oil Painting (9/21/2022) - This post is about my very first attempt at oil painting. Well, really first ever attempt at any type of painting, which to my surprise was actually done this past weekend. I feel like I've been talking about this for years, but I've had "learning to paint" in my back… Read More

European Travel via Mediterranean Cruise – Tips and Thoughts (8/29/2022) - This write-up covers some tips and thoughts regarding European travel, specifically when taking a Mediterranean Cruise. Like a lot of the world, we haven't traveled much over the last couple of years. Some small voyages occasionally, but my wife and I are fairly cautious people so we've been hesitant to… Read More

Author and Travel Show Host Rick Steves (8/12/2022) - Somewhere in the neighborhood of a decade ago, my wife and I took a honeymoon trip to Europe. To celebrate this anniversary, we decided to make another voyage overseas - this time with a couple of little ones along for the ride! I am planning a full write-up on this… Read More

Summer 2022 Portrait Giveaway (7/26/2022) - When I shared my last custom portrait giveaway, I mentioned that I had somehow let a year go by between these artwork raffles. I thought that was sort of an aberration due to the pandemic and all. Yet here we are again, almost a year later, and I let time… Read More

Delayed Portrait Giveaway Artwork (6/25/2022) - In my last post, I wrote a bit on the fact that my posts are often a bit delayed from when the artwork is actually finished. As I said previously, it's probably a fairly common phenomenon for many artists to delay sharing something by a month or two. But there… Read More

Blog Post Length and Total Views Comparison (6/11/2022) - There was a point in time, just a few years ago, when I typically referred to Amdall Gallery as both an art and data analysis blog. In fact, I still even have it in the sub-title at the top of the site. I've been consistently writing posts every month since… Read More

A Longtime Friend’s Wedding Portrait (5/27/2022) - I am often slightly backlogged on writing blog posts. It's something that I've mentioned previously and is probably fairly common for many artists who write about what they do. Not anything too crazy, but it's not uncommon for me to share something I sketched a month ago, or to be… Read More

Elden Ring Art – Ranni the Witch, Blaidd, and Iji (5/13/2022) - I've finally beaten Elden Ring, which feels like quite a milestone for someone who isn't a particularly skilled gamer (I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally rolled myself off a cliff). Since I've finally beaten the final boss, or really "bosses" to be more accurate, it's given me… Read More

Elden Ring Art – Millicent, Hewg, Alexander, and Turtle Pope (5/3/2022) - As I've discussed quite a bit, I am a big fan of Elden Ring by From Software. The challenging and deep combat of Dark Souls, combined with a massively engaging open world along the lines of The Witcher 3, have already elevated this game to my all-time favorites list. I've… Read More

Travel Art – Drawing on an Airplane (4/29/2022) - The question of what to do during a long flight is much easier to answer than it used to be. Our kids have been on planes a few times, and we’ve been fortunate that they handle flights pretty well. Of course, we have to thank the existence of kids’ tablets… Read More

In Memory of Javier Garcia (4/21/2022) - This post is written in memory of Javier Homero Garcia. Javier, my wife's father, recently passed away. We were fortunate that we were able to travel to see him shortly before he passed, and my wife was able to spend a solid week with him and say her goodbyes. She… Read More

Elden Ring Malenia Radahn Artwork (4/11/2022) - Apparently Amdall Gallery is turning into an Elden Ring fanart site, because I just couldn’t move on yet without getting into some of the interesting bosses (also called “demigods” in the game). Specifically, I wanted to draw a couple of the ones I find most fascinating: Starscourge General Radahn and… Read More

Elden Ring Spirit Ash Drawing (3/25/2022) - I thought I had sufficiently scratched the Elden Ring artwork itch with a couple of drawings I shared last week, but apparently that is not the case! I was sitting at my desk feeling the urge to draw, and I thought about how much I enjoyed working on the previous… Read More

Elden Ring Art – Tarnished, Maiden, and Grace (3/13/2022) - Like many people, I've been completely transfixed over the last couple of weeks by Elden Ring. The game is basically like wild mashup of Dark Souls, Zelda, and the Witcher 3. As it was developed by From Software, Elden Ring has all of their usual fare; unforgivingly difficult enemies, well-designed… Read More

Drawing a Mirror’s Reflection (3/4/2022) - I am often amused by the strange processes that seem to govern how I decide what to draw. Personality-wise, I tend to be a planner and a creature of habit. I like routines in life and in drawing, and tend to seek a predictable path to art however I can.… Read More

Poll: Best Drawing Time-Lapse Method? (2/7/2022) - https://poll.fm/11036479 Buried deep towards the end of my last post, I posed the question, "which style of time-lapse drawing progression is your favorite?" I embedded a crowdsignal poll with some options I've used. I have long struggled trying to figure out which is truly the "best." The slideshow-style .gif images… Read More

Art Show Entry, Dallas OAC ART214 Exhibition (2/3/2022) - One of my New Year's resolutions for 2022, in addition to the usual "eat better" and "get more exercise" items, has been to enter a drawing into an art show. Several years ago, based on a suggestion from a co-worker, I submitted a sketch for the River Oaks 5 X… Read More

Yennefer Artwork, The Witcher Show and Game (1/20/2022) - Just recently, I rambled on and on describing my approach to sharing multiple related drawings. Over the course of several paragraphs and almost a thousand words, I philosophized about how much I prefer to see drawings split into several posts so I can come across them again individually on the… Read More

Stargate SG-1 and Original Movie Discussion (1/16/2022) - A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a bit on some of my recent viewing habits. Over the last year or so, I've been watching a lot of the free content on Roku TV, especially the Bob Ross Joy of Painting and Mystery Science Theater 3000 channels and some of… Read More

Sharing Multiple Drawings – Another Geralt and Ciri (1/8/2022) - My habits when it comes to artwork typically involve sporadic bursts of motivation. I often tackle one drawing at a time, spending a couple of hours on the project before I move on to something fresh. Sometimes though, I become so inspired about a topic that I work on multiple… Read More

Geralt and Ciri Art From The Witcher Netflix Show (1/1/2022) - Recently, season two of Netflix's The Witcher series debuted. Back in the summer lock-down months of 2020, I wrote a bit about my impressions from season one and my fondness for the Witcher 3 video game. That game is one of the best open world RPG experiences I've had, right… Read More

Thoughts on Portrait Requests (12/31/2021) - First and foremost, happy new year to all! It feels like we're stuck in a bizarre time loop in some respects. I definitely remember thinking last year at this time, "hey maybe this pandemic business will finally settle down next year." Well, I have the same wish now - hopefully… Read More

Weekend Relaxation and Unfamiliar Movies – Pandorum Drawing (12/4/2021) - One of my all-time favorite things is a nice lazy Saturday with the family. It's a fantastic scene from my perspective: We're all upstairs and probably still wearing whatever we slept in. My wife is reading, the kids and I are drawing. We've got Joy of Painting or maybe some… Read More

Self Portrait Comparisons (11/6/2021) - Every once in a while, I find it's nice to attempt a self-portrait. After all, what face are you more familiar with than your own? My kids and wife are surely very close, and I've drawn them all many times. But drawing my own face is kind of a nice… Read More

Fall 2021 Portrait Giveaway (10/19/2021) - It's been quite a long time since I've done a portrait giveaway - somehow, the last one was more than a year ago! It's hard to believe it's been so long since I did one of these artwork raffle/sweepstakes. The two I did in 2020, which resulted in "The Boo… Read More

Art Backlog Thoughts and Cousins Hanging Out (10/16/2021) - At the moment, I am quite backlogged in terms of both finished portraits I haven't yet written about and ideas for future drawings. I've written about my tendency to get behind on this sort of thing, to develop a backlog, but this feels like the most extreme it's been in… Read More

Narrated Walkthrough, Drawing Process Discussion (10/11/2021) - One of the early pandemic projects I started was to transition from progression .gif slides of my drawing process into full time-lapse videos. I created a YouTube channel to host them, rather than take up my precious WordPress hosting storage space with large video files. I've had the YouTube channel… Read More

New Family Pet, a Ragamuffin Cat (9/19/2021) - Earlier this summer, our family finally made a much-discussed leap to adopt a little fur-ball. If I haven't already mentioned our new cat offhand in another post, I am certain he's at least made some brief cameos in art progression videos as he walks right across the drawing space! As… Read More

Guitarist and Busker Mariusz Goli (9/3/2021) - Like a lot of people, my primary method for visual music consumption is YouTube. In the absence of an actual television channel dedicated to music videos (what a novel concept), it's definitely the go-to method for enjoying official music videos. But it's also a great venue for watching live music… Read More

Drawing with the Kids (8/8/2021) - If you've read many posts on this site, it's probably apparent that I do a lot of drawing with my kids. They have desks set up right next to mine, and on the weekends, we'll often all sit around and draw. They are quite adventurous with their art; creating pure… Read More

Navigating Subtle Facial Expressions (7/14/2021) - In conversations with acquaintances, colleagues, and other various newly-met people, occasionally my drawing hobby comes up. Although not everyone is particularly interested in art, usually I can expect a follow up question or two; something along the lines of "what do you draw" or "using what?" People are usually somewhat… Read More

Non-Stop Bob Ross and The Joy of Painting (6/17/2021) - Moving to a new home naturally comes with an adjustment period. I guess everyone's timing may vary, but eventually that sense of newness wears off and most people fall into some comfortable routines again. My family and I have a few months now under our belt in our new home,… Read More

Princess Bride Part 3 – Westley and Buttercup in the Fireswamp (5/21/2021) - Where does the time go? It seems like I ask myself that a lot. It's probably on my mind so much lately because I'm rapidly approaching four decades of stumbling around on this planet. My kids seem to be growing faster than ever, and I'm trying to capture and appreciate… Read More

Princess Bride Series Part 2 – Fezzik, Inigo, and Westley (4/7/2021) - Over the last week or so, I went on a sudden Princess Bride artwork binge. I started outlines for three different scenes! I've only finished one so far, but I was surprised by the sudden surge of Princess Bride-related activity. I think it was partially inspired by our recent move.… Read More

New Home, New Desk, New Art (3/20/2021) - Well, it took quite a bit longer than I anticipated, but it seems things are finally settling down for me and my family. Last year, we started the ball rolling on a move from Louisiana to Texas. We made the move last summer, but the pandemic and an unexpectedly insane… Read More

Thoughts on Website Monetization And Affiliate Links (2/14/2021) - 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 the website pay for itself. Portrait art and web development are hobbies for me, so I have never really sought to monetize them heavily, but… Read More

Practicing Scenery Through Video Game Art (1/9/2021) - 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 certain things that come easier and others that just don't click. I'm not trying to beat myself up - it's just part of life! And… Read More

Full Portrait Walkthrough YouTube Video (1/1/2021) - 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 on outline sketches and measurement. Although I was happy with the discussion portion, I was not very satisfied with the… Read More

Santa Taking a Cookie Break Christmas Eve (12/19/2020) - 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 right to this drawing of Santa since we're so close to Christmas, even though it skips the line a bit. I had taken somewhat of… Read More

Giveaway Winner – The Boo Crew Puppy Drawing (11/25/2020) - 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 a long term goal of sharing at least one blog post per month, which I have been able to keep rolling for over three years!… Read More

Second Healthcare Worker Drawing (10/11/2020) - 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 social media. The gist of it was, as a small way to show appreciation for people on the front lines as COVID-19 raged, artists were… Read More

Youtuber Art Series, Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) (9/19/2020) - 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 a bit more on the Amdall Gallery YouTube channel. As you might expect from a hobbyist like myself, I've had mixed results. Although I have… Read More

End of Summer 2020 Portrait Giveaway (8/30/2020) - I think I've enjoyed some pretty good luck lately with portrait giveaways. I had a great experience with the last giveaway winner, which really left me with a positive feeling all around regarding this hobby. I've also done a couple of free portraits for healthcare/essential workers during the pandemic which… Read More

Drawing of New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern (8/13/2020) - 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 to talk about some other things. I actually worked on this drawing sort of a while ago, towards the end of June or beginning of… Read More

New Product and Game Review Site ‘Armdog Reviews’ (7/27/2020) - 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 the works since late February, and we made the leap a couple of weeks ago. It was a bit of a trial though; the movers… Read More

Finished Portraits from the April Giveaway (7/4/2020) - 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 original giveaway was back in April, which somehow feels like both an eternity ago and just last week. I guess pandemic life warps time in… Read More

More from the Witcher, Ciri of Cintra (6/26/2020) - 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 in detail and shared some artwork featuring Geralt of Rivia, the Witcher himself. I mentioned that, unlike with Stranger Things, I actually caught this show… Read More

The Witcher Art, Geralt of Rivia (6/19/2020) - 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 heard a lot of positive things about it, and enjoyed playing The Witcher 3 video game, so this seemed like a sure-fire thing. It actually… Read More

Initial Sketch Outline Discussion (6/3/2020) - 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 during a pandemic sure bends in mysterious ways. Anyhow, in the last two weeks or so since my last post, I've actually been pretty busy… Read More

YouTube Channel for Amdall Gallery (5/21/2020) - 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 posts, I often include still frame .gif images to provide a small window into how my portraits come together. Some people find these .gifs useful,… Read More

Mother’s Day Portrait (5/11/2020) - 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 naturally been a bit different than previous holidays; I certainly can't remember navigating a pandemic quarantine. Despite that fact, I think we were able to… Read More

Scenes from a Mr. Bungle Concert (5/7/2020) - 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 his bands, with a drawing of Patton himself. This post is specifically about a Mr. Bungle concert in 1999 that still ranks as one of… Read More

Healthcare Worker Portrait Request (5/3/2020) - 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 contest, so if having some artwork similar to what I share on this site is something that interests you, give it a shot! I've done… Read More

Musical Virtuoso Mike Patton (4/26/2020) - 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 long?). Since I don't typically refer to other people by name on this site, I won't do that here, but they know who they are.… Read More

Portrait Giveaway While We’re Social Distancing (4/24/2020) - As I was thinking about tentative plans for a few upcoming posts, the thought crossed my mind to do another artwork giveaway. It's been about a year since my last one, so I think it's a great time for another. They've been a fun way to generate new art projects,… Read More

Dark Tower Villain Improvements (4/18/2020) - 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 a barrage of posts about the Dark Tower. Even outside of this specific series, I'm a huge Stephen King fan, but the Dark Tower books… Read More

Goofy Portrait from Another Decade (4/17/2020) - 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 a photo of me and my wife from back when we were dating; I'm making some ridiculous face, while she's giving me that patient look… Read More

Meme Art, Sergeant Mittens is Ready (4/15/2020) - 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 completed multiple drawings and haven't shared them - a backlog of finished artwork. Normally having art that's done is the limiting factor, not the writing… Read More

Artwork and Website Spring Cleaning (4/13/2020) - 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 for quite a while, and what better time to get to it than a month long quarantine? The project involved two main tasks that actually… Read More

By Request, Frozen’s Anna and Elsa (4/9/2020) - 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, I recently wrote, illustrated, and published a children's book called Robot Family Adventures. It's actually free on Kindle right now, so if your kids want… Read More

New Kids Book ‘Robot Family Adventures’ (4/5/2020) - 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 personal account of my experiences returning to art after having been away from it for a decade. This year, my… Read More

Crowded Restaurant Drawing (3/24/2020) - 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 that we should be complaining though; we've got shelter, food, and the apparently highly valuable commodity known as toilet paper. We are also fortunate enough… Read More

Video Game Sketch Inspired by Kenshi (3/22/2020) - 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 you're not entirely satisfied with; when it doesn't turn into what you imagined. This post, and the game Kenshi itself, actually remind me a lot… Read More

Pandemic Social Distancing Artwork (3/19/2020) - 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 and financial crisis and I'll probably be sharing some art over the next few weeks. I have lots of thoughts on this situation, but I'll… Read More

More Stranger Things Artwork (3/4/2020) - 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 much I would love it. I managed to keep that post mostly spoiler free, but I've decided in this second post to abandon that plan.… Read More

Late to the Stranger Things Party (2/15/2020) - 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 of things, which is definitely outside of the norm. Holiday travel is my usual excuse this time of year, but I've also had some other… Read More

Portrait of a New Nephew (1/10/2020) - 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 I gave to my mom as part of her Christmas gift this year. There was a delay in sharing that one because I wanted to… Read More

Holiday Portrait Gift (12/25/2019) - 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 beginning of December, but I'm just now publishing it on Christmas. The reason for the massive delay is the same as a similar one from… Read More

Luka Doncic the Surprise MVP Candidate (11/23/2019) - 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) a Dallas Cowboys fan, in the grand scheme of things the Mavericks tend to take the top spot in my fandom. My dad used to… Read More

How to Make Progression .Gif Images (11/15/2019) - 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, but I guess they add up over time. Through all of that text about artwork, it seems I've developed a pattern to my writing. I… Read More

Continuing Through The Backlog (11/13/2019) - 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 drawing my way through a setback. Without retreading the all the details, basically there is an art show that I found to be inspiring early… Read More

New Gadget Fun – Fossil Hybrid HR Collider (11/9/2019) - 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 and resetting the watch doesn't help; the hour hand is stuck at 2:00 (and occasionally moves to 11:00 for some reason). The minute hand does… Read More

Working Through a Misfire by way of the Backlog (11/8/2019) - 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" show. It's one that I entered two years ago and surprisingly had a sketch accepted for the exhibit. That was really early in my return… Read More

Updating a Wedding Present Portrait (11/1/2019) - 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 point, which doesn't seem like a tremendous amount of time on its face, but feels significant to me. The style of artwork and techniques used… Read More

Video Game Museum Scenes (10/19/2019) - 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 in Frisco. As I'm sure is obvious by my multiple posts about games, I am generally a big fan of them. In fact, my love… Read More

Poseable Drawing Figure Research and Testing (10/9/2019) - 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 flying by since drawing something, and how it never feels like so long ago. I've had a similar feeling when I started writing this one.… Read More

River Oaks Tiny Art Show 2019 (9/28/2019) - 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 about the time I started really getting into this website (September-ish 2017), I happened to hear about an interesting art show from a coworker. I… Read More

Unfinished Art and an Unposed Portrait (9/9/2019) - 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 flies sometimes. Okay, not sometimes - pretty much all the time. My last post was about using models and figures to help with portraits, which… Read More

Hardcover Book Giveaway and EBook Discount (8/22/2019) - It's been almost five months since my book Pencils and Process came out. I'm proud to say that the book has slightly more than broken even, after accounting for costs like the ISBNs, ads, author copies, proofs, etc. (let's just ignore that factoring in time/labor certainly puts me into the… Read More

Drawing Models and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (8/20/2019) - 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 informative subreddit, finding a great thread of funny images, or even learning about something cool you'd want to buy. Even better, but a bit more… Read More

Jon Stewart Getting Things Done (8/10/2019) - 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 on mass shootings. But this blog is mostly about art, data, and random tech stuff, so I try to keep it in those lanes for… Read More

Drawing Friends, Another Yearly Comparison (7/22/2019) - 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. As I've mentioned before, I took a (mostly) ten year break, so it makes me happy that I'm still at it and still learning. It's… Read More

Working Through Artistic Envy (7/16/2019) - 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, writing has become as much about sharing the struggles as the victories when it comes to this hobby. I hope… Read More

Experimenting with Light Sources (6/25/2019) - 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 just sort of sitting around Sunday afternoon while my wife and kids taking naps. The previous portrait was a request from one of my co-workers… Read More

Back to Paper for a Coworker Request (6/21/2019) - 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 a pretty substantial computer folder full of ideas, many of which are inspired by Unsplash photos. But before tapping that reservoir, I found myself with… Read More

Digital Painting Capstone (6/8/2019) - 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 and resurgent interest due to a new tablet purchase (Samsung Galaxy Tab S4). In the second, I talked a bit more about the app I… Read More

Improving with the Tablet and Sketchbook App (6/7/2019) - 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 a tablet designed strictly for drawing in conjunction with a computer screen (XP-Pen Deco 01) did not go smoothly, and I pretty quickly abandoned the… Read More

Another Try at Digital Artwork (6/6/2019) - 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 Deco 01 tablet and downloaded Krita's open source painting software to give it a shot. As I mentioned in last year's post, this was quite… Read More

Mark Hearts and Kids at the Dentist (5/18/2019) - 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 sketches in the near future will probably be related to Unsplash, I decided to take a brief detour. If you follow this blog already,… Read More

Drawing from Unsplash Photos (5/10/2019) - 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 and that's mostly off my plate, I hope to have a little more time for drawing. Because I have been… Read More

Welcome to Flavortown (4/27/2019) - 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 the preferred spelling. Regardless, this is a post about my favorite wild-haired, sandwich-tasting chef on television. For the most part, people know Guy Fieri from… Read More

Publishing on Amazon’s KDP and IngramSpark (4/20/2019) - 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, but never actually attempted until this year. Although I've written about the book's content, I have not really discussed much… Read More

‘Pencils and Process’ Book is Out Now (4/5/2019) - 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 and Barnes and Noble. It may be coming to some other retailers like Books-a-Million too, but I'm not sure when.… Read More

Book Status, January Giveaway Portrait (3/28/2019) - 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 though - as I mentioned last month, I am writing a book. It's primarily about my experiences getting back into art after being away from… Read More

A Dark Tower Redo, One Year Comparison (2/23/2019) - 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 not familiar, the story follows Roland the Gunslinger on his quest to fix a ruined world. He gains some great companions along the way, and… Read More

Ernie Hudson and The Crow (2/12/2019) - 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 of room. Due to my poor planning, I couldn't find a place for Winston Zeddemore. This has bothered me since I shared the sketch; first,… Read More

Long Term Goals and Sketch Impulsivity (2/6/2019) - 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 Cowboys drawing of Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliot (which I lost interest in when they were bounced from the playoffs by the Rams). I also… Read More

Art on a Shopping Cart (2/2/2019) - 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 with the dual kid seats. You know the type; usually brightly colored, sometimes with steering wheels for the kids, but always giant-sized monstrosities. They're probably… Read More

More Parks and Recreation Art – Leslie Knope (1/29/2019) - 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 sick, while my wife's superhero immune system spared her. This one really kicked my butt, and I had a few days when even sitting upright… Read More

Video Game Art, Pillars of Eternity Group (1/23/2019) - 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 old NES/SNES, I've enjoyed drawing scenes and characters inspired by video games. This is especially true when I become immersed in a game and its… Read More

Starting 2019 with a Portrait Giveaway (1/21/2019) - What better way to start 2019 than with another portrait giveaway? Well, actually there are better ways...winning the lotto comes to mind. But, it would be fun to do another one of these custom drawing giveaways. This will be the fourth giveaway on this site, and the third that is… Read More

Ron Swanson, The Simpsons, and New Parents (1/11/2019) - 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 watching TV and saw a commercial or something featuring Nick Offerman. It may have been something about a syndicated rerun of Parks and Recreation. Whatever… Read More

Subject Counts and Wife Solo Portraits (1/5/2019) - 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 had a feeling that the most frequent subject was probably my wife. Because data is fun, I decided there was no point in just assuming… Read More

Self Portrait, Shadow and Contrast Struggles (12/22/2018) - I came across a really interesting article a few days ago called How to Be an Artist - 33 Rules to Take you from Clueless Amateur to Generational Talent (or at Least Help you Live Life a Little More Creatively). It's a crazy long title, but basically the article has… Read More

New Phone Quest Revisited – Pixel 3 vs Pixel 2 (12/20/2018) - 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; stock/mostly unbloated Android, pocket sized (not a "phablet"), and a good low light camera were the most important considerations. I've also always wanted a battery… Read More

The Laundry Basket Girls (12/7/2018) - 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 to my favorite portrait subject though; my family. I haven't done a full accounting of people or types of artwork I've done (which would be… Read More

Advertisements on Amdall Gallery (12/3/2018) - 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 mostly been about sharing my love of data analysis and my (I hope) improvement over time as an amateur artist. I introduced ads partially because… Read More

Art Prompts from Pinterest Part 2 (11/19/2018) - 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 the site can be for generating drawing ideas. This weekend, I decided to finally dive into my art prompts Pinterest board and try a few… Read More

Art Prompts from Pinterest Part 1 (11/19/2018) - 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 of. I haven't gotten traction on any others near the level I have on the Wordpress Reader, Facebook, or Twitter. But I figured I should… Read More

Well, I’m no Albert Einstein (11/7/2018) - 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 sketching him, I kept thinking about the phrase "He's no Albert Einstein, but..." The idea of being so universally recognized in society for a specific… Read More

Art from an Internet Meme (11/5/2018) - 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 someone who straddles that zone between Generation X and Millennial (i.e. "Xennial", "Oregon Trail Generation"), I have traits of both. I really enjoy one development… Read More

Three-Quarters of the Ghostbusters (10/23/2018) - 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 favorite movies. I started with the Karate Kid, did a couple from the Fifth Element, then sort of abandoned the idea. There are a few… Read More

Big Kid and Her Apple (10/20/2018) - 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 about how I hadn't drawn much lately. But that wasn't last week...it was last month! Once that thought hit me that October was headed towards… Read More

Portrait from the August Giveaway (9/29/2018) - 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 the one year anniversary of getting back into this website, my inspiration to draw started fading. I'm really not sure why...did I burn myself out?… Read More

One Year Site Anniversary (9/7/2018) - 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 analysis blog. Actually, it has been 13 months...I'm a little late in writing this post, as the one year mark would have been August 6th.… Read More

Portrait Giveaway, Round Three (8/14/2018) - Welcome to the third Amdall Gallery custom portrait giveaway! Well, I suppose it's the third...the first giveaway included a choice of $20 or a portrait, so this will actually be the second that is only for a portrait. Anyway, this time the raffle is for a custom portrait (or other… Read More

Lost Dinosaur Timeline (7/28/2018) - 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 any book or toy I could get my hands on that featured dinosaurs. During our early elementary grades, my sister and I were in a… Read More

A Family Portrait from New Orleans (7/23/2018) - 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 year, I think I've averaged 9-10 posts per month, with some peaks and valleys. But June and July have been huge valleys, with only six… Read More

A 2018 Liebster Award for Amdall Gallery (7/21/2018) - 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 from the top, thank you to Christine Mallaband-Brown for the nomination! Christine is a talented artist, so that's really cool to be nominated by someone… Read More

June Portrait Giveaway, the Resulting Artwork (7/15/2018) - 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 liked, which seemed to be a good candidate for a portrait scene. I started the outlines of the sketch as I normally do, but ended… Read More

Gift Sketch of Nana and the Grandkids (7/5/2018) - 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, but that is unusual for me since I can't stand to sit on finished art. It's by necessity though, because these drawings are actually birthday… Read More

Custom Portrait Giveaway Winner (6/27/2018) - The second Amdall Gallery giveaway officially came to an end Tuesday night. There was only one prize this time - a custom portrait of the winner's choice. I was surprised by how many entries we got with the first contest, but I was certain the second giveaway would have less.… Read More

More Throwback Practice Art (6/24/2018) - 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 Jimi Hendrix, and the other was a solid drawing of Ann Margret from Viva Las Vegas. It was a fun exercise to gain some drawing… Read More

Drafting Doncic – The Mavericks’ Future is Bright (6/23/2018) - 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 be very talent-rich compared to other years, and the 2019 draft is apparently supposed to be less robust. So, for my rebuilding Dallas Mavericks, it… Read More

The Greatness of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (6/11/2018) - 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 about people making fun of terrible movies. There was a rudimentary plot about a janitor (Joel Hodgson and later Mike Nelson) being banished to a… Read More

Back to Basics, Paper Sketch of the Kiddos (6/3/2018) - 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 movies, athletes, and performers. That's been a significant change from earlier in the artwork timeline on this site, when I pretty much always sketched my family.… Read More

Digital Drawing is Really Hard (6/3/2018) - 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 wild idea based on something I read, get really into it for a little while, then abandon it forever after a few weeks. A great… Read More

Preferred Medium, Process, and Frequently Used Colors (5/30/2018) - 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 that! I think from time to time, I may mention the types of pencils I use or answer a question… Read More

Tribute to Dragon’s Dogma, My Favorite Game (5/27/2018) - 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 "ever-turning wheel," and how a hero and a dragon keep the wheel moving. The question at the core of the plot is, what do you… Read More

The Fifth Element – Gary Oldman’s Zorg (5/25/2018) - 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 shared a drawing of Leeloo Dallas and her treasured Multipass. In this second drawing, we're going to talk about the main antagonist of the movie… Read More

The Fifth Element – Leeloo Dallas Multipass (5/25/2018) - 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 best byproduct of it may be ideas for more art. I made a list of favorite movies (Ghostbusters, Caddyshack, about a dozen others), and decided… Read More

Custom Portrait Giveaway (5/23/2018) - In this poll asking if anyone would be interested in a giveaway if it only involved a custom portrait, four respondents (100%) said yes! So, in a contest that doesn't involve any cash prize, at least four people might enter - that works for me. That being said, let me… Read More

Subscriber Giveaway Winner (5/22/2018) - In April, I did a series of posts expressing my appreciation for visitors, readers, and subscribers to Amdall Gallery, and opened up a giveaway as small gesture of thanks. The prize was small (essentially $20 or custom artwork), but there were far more entries than I expected! I was thinking maybe a… Read More

Mr. Miyagi and Daniel from the Karate Kid (5/19/2018) - 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. Last night I finally had an idea, inspired by my previous sketch of Fezzik and Inigo from the Princess Bride. The Princess Bride is one… Read More

Access and VBA Cheat Sheet (5/18/2018) - 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 a solution to something at work, co-workers usually say something like, "let me guess, it's a pivot table." Actually, usually… Read More

A New Type of Subject – My Sister’s Cat (5/17/2018) - 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 anything she was interested in, and she mentioned her cat Biscuit. She probably wasn't entirely joking (like with what happened in my Lord of the… Read More

My Attempted Tribute to Emmitt Smith (5/15/2018) - 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 Witten is one of the greats, and would have been right at home with the great Super Bowl teams from the early nineties. Towards the… Read More

A Masterpiece from My Oldest Daughter (5/9/2018) - Naturally, this site is primarily focused on things that I've drawn. That makes sense, it's right there in the name; Amdall (me) Gallery (a collection of art). But, my three year old daughter drew something a couple days ago which I thought was really good for her age. I figured,… Read More

Sneezing Lady (or Maybe Crying? Yawning?) (5/6/2018) - 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 associate, etc.) is sick. Sometimes when I come across random articles like this, I'll just read a couple lines and skip to something else. But… Read More

Jason Witten’s Retirement – The Secret is in the Dirt (5/5/2018) - "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 ability and for practicing more than his contemporaries. I've discussed my relationship with the Dallas Cowboys a bit in a previous post; they've been my… Read More

Messing Up a Guardians of the Galaxy Drawing (4/29/2018) - 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 ran face first into the latter scenario this weekend! After a fairly successful Star Trek drawing, I decided to take a crack at the Guardians… Read More

Star Trek’s Captain Picard, This Time in Color (4/28/2018) - 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 Captain Picard, La Forge, and Data in a crazy dream sequence from one of the more bizarre Star Trek the Next Generation episodes. Although I… Read More

Rock and Roll Beethoven, Historical Photo Account Part 2 (4/22/2018) - 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, I talked about a very cool Twitter account called "History Lovers Club" (@historylvrsclub) that shares somewhat rare photos. They mostly post less common images of… Read More

Inspiration from Twitter, Historical Photo Account Part 1 (4/22/2018) - 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 best resources have been people I actually know and famous people (athletes, musicians, etc). I can't help it; I can draw a portrait of a… Read More

Almost a Sketch Request, Sam Carrying Frodo (4/20/2018) - In the comments of an Instagram post I made on my last sketch (Fezzik and Inigo from the Princess Bride), one of my longtime friends responded with "Sam and Frodo." This comment was pretty exciting, because I thought it was a request for another sketch! As it turns out, he… Read More

Subscriber Appreciation Giveaway (4/19/2018) - Welcome to the last portion of a series of posts thanking subscribers, showing my appreciation for folks out there who've viewed the site, shared advice, and provided encouragement. In part one, I discussed some favorite art sites and asked readers about the types of giveaways they might be interested in.… Read More

Fezzik and Inigo from the Princess Bride, A Warm-Up (4/17/2018) - Despite wanting to put pencil to paper, it's been a few weeks since I've drawn anything. I'ts been on my mind, but life/work has been busier than usual lately, so I haven't had much of a chance. In the interim, I was able to finish up a subscriber thank you… Read More

Milestone Statistics, Unnecessarily Detailed Data (4/8/2018) - Welcome to part two of three in a series of posts thanking readers, and taking a step back to review Amdall Gallery's status as we approach a subscriber milestone. In the first, I dropped a poll asking what sort of giveaway subscribers might be interested in, and shared a few… Read More

Subscriber Thanks, Some Artist Site Favorites (4/5/2018) - To my continued surprise, this website has gained more subscribers than I ever would have expected. When I resurrected Amdall Gallery from the ancient blog burial grounds last August, I assumed I would mostly get traffic from friends and family. As it turns out though, Wordpress has a large and… Read More

Radio Favorites – Loveline with Adam and Dr. Drew (4/1/2018) - A couple days ago, I posted part one in a two part series on my favorite radio shows. I often listen to these old shows while I'm drawing, particularly after my family has gone to bed. In part one, I discussed my paranormal fix in the form of old Art… Read More

Radio Favorites – Art Bell and his Many Shows (3/31/2018) - Often when I draw, I'm also talking with the family, listening to my oldest make up stories, or absorbing the kids' show-of-the-moment in the background. When those things aren't happening, especially weekends after everyone has gone to bed, I find one of my favorite "old" radio shows to listen to… Read More

Two Concurrent Sketches, Dad and the Girls (3/29/2018) - Welcome to part two of this reckless "drawing two things at once" series. Basically, I was so pumped up from feeling like I've actually been improving, I decided to sketch two scenes concurrently. This was not my best idea, as I felt compelled to finish too much too quickly. The… Read More

Drawing Two Scenes at Once, First Sketch of Grandma (3/28/2018) - I'm in an unusual place with this sketching hobby right now. I can see improvement in the results to some degree, and it's making me excited to draw more. But, I'm still not that imaginative in terms of subject matter, and I am sort of running out of ideas. A… Read More

Hometown Series, the Unfinished One (3/25/2018) - At the beginning of this month, I started something I referred to as a "hometown series" of sketches. Basically, I tried to capture some scenes of friends from my hometown, mostly from old (really? 10-15 years is old?) photographs I have. I sketched some of us in a football huddle,… Read More

Current Shading Process, Portrait Flow (3/24/2018) - As I scroll through Amdall Gallery's main page, I can't help but notice how my drawings have changed. Not everyone may agree, but I believe there has been an improvement over time. From August 2017 until now, after about seven months of practice, these sketches seem more confident to me.… Read More

More Art from Ads (3/21/2018) - Back in February, I did a couple sketches based on clothing ads I saw online. A couple weeks ago, I was flipping through my daily pile of junk mail and came across a small postcard ad for some local dentist's office. I took a glance and thought, "wow, those might… Read More

Poor Planning Left Off Subjects, Turned Us Into Ghostbusters (3/9/2018) - The next sketch on tap, as I mentioned in the last post, was another "hometown series" sketch. I've done a football huddle scene, and one with some old friends chatting. The next sketch I started with was a close up of a couple of guys, but I realized it once… Read More

Hometown Series, Distinguished Gentlemen Chatting (3/4/2018) - Continuing on with my "hometown series" of sketches, here's part two. In the first drawing, I included a few of the guys I used to play football with. It feels like it wasn't very long ago, but we are closer to measuring that as a decade ago than just a… Read More

Hometown Series, Football Huddle (3/2/2018) - It's been about seven years since I moved from the ol' hometown, where I spent the first three decades of my life. During my 20s, I spent a good chunk of that time hanging out with a great group of people. I had a blast with this crew, and have… Read More

New Discussion Forums (2/26/2018) - This website is a hobby, and one of the main motivations behind it is that I enjoy making tweaks and trying new features. In fact, I love trying new themes and widgets so much, I've even made dummy sites that have already been mothballed. On Amdall Gallery, I recently got… Read More

The Challenge of a Close-up Family Scene (2/25/2018) -   This is sort of a part two from my post Friday night about drawing my wife, and the challenges of art involving people you are close to. Basically, the goal I'm striving for is to get some more accurate sketches of my wife, since several I've done in the… Read More

Working on More Realism in Family Portraits (2/23/2018) - I have drawn four total sketches of my wife. From what I can see looking at these previous drawings, I don't think I've ever quite captured her accurately. Years ago, I did one of me and her together, and it wasn't bad. I also did a rough sketch I used… Read More

Mass Shooting Data Update, Ideas to Reverse the Trend (2/21/2018) - This is going to be somewhat of a duplication of my post from October on mass shooting data, but with more recent numbers. After the Las Vegas mass shooting, I felt the need to write sort of a capstone article summarizing material from the three previous posts. I also dedicated… Read More

Random Art, One with Madmartigan from Willow (2/21/2018) - I've got some random recent sketches on hand, so I thought I'd just combine a couple unrelated ones into a single post. My favorite of the bunch is a drawing from the movie Willow. If you haven't seen the movie, it's a fantasy-genre movie from the late 1980s, starring Val… Read More

Another Featuring Dirk Nowitzki (2/8/2018) - Last year, I did a sketch tribute to my favorite basketball player of all time, the king of the one-legged jumper, Dirk Nowitzki. That first drawing was from one of my favorite moments in NBA history, when Dirk led the Dallas Mavericks back on the road to tie the 2011… Read More

More Video Game Characters – Secret of Mana, Original SNES and Remake (2/4/2018) - I mentioned in a post last week that video games sometimes inspire my sketches. I'm not great at drawing from my imagination, but if I get a spark to do so, it often comes from video games (books play their part too). Previously, I've done sketches inspired by Final Fantasy… Read More

Cryptocurrency Experiment – the Inevitable Crash, 6 Month Update (2/2/2018) - Well, here we are at the six month mark of this cryptocurrency experiment. Aside from half a year being a nice waypoint of time, there is quite a bit happening in the crypto world. First and foremost, it's been an absolutely wild ride over the last two months; my portfolio… Read More

Getting Some Right Brain Exercise, Sketching Video Game Characters (1/27/2018) - The last handful of posts I made were "back in time" topics (1, 2, 3), sharing some old sketches. An observations from this series was that my drawings were a bit more creative and off-the-wall back then. Many of my recent drawings have been portraits of real people, mostly my… Read More

Back in Time Part 3 – Last Batch Before the Long Break (1/24/2018) - Welcome back for part three of the "old sketches from Jon" series. Previously, we looked at my high school drawings and some study aids I used in college. This is the last "old sketch" phase, covering the time after high school until age 20 or 21. Around then, life started giving… Read More

Back in Time Part 2 – College Study Aids (1/24/2018) - In part two of this series on art time traveling, I'm going to look at some study materials I put together. Although, I can't remember if I made these for college or graduate school. It really could have been either; I was a Biology major as an undergraduate, and my… Read More

Back in Time Part 1 – High School Sketches (1/23/2018) - I was doing a little website housecleaning, and saw I had uploaded a bunch of old sketches but never made posts about them. They mostly consisted of sketches from when I was in high school and my late teens, before I took a 15 year break (wow, sounds bad when… Read More

Cool Ladies at the Coffee Shop (1/20/2018) - As I continue with these sketches, I'm trying to make sure I've got most of the configurations of family portraits covered. Even if some of them were newer and in color versus older black and whites. I've got the full family, me and my wife, our two girls together, me… Read More

Snow Day in Louisiana (1/17/2018) - To my amazement, we actually had a real snow event in Louisiana this week. I think we got about 2-3 inches of actual snow, and it was even cold enough that it didn't melt immediately! It's been unusually cold this winter, which is a really nice change of pace. My… Read More

The Dark Tower Villain Sketches (1/14/2018) - I've given significant sketching time to the heroes from the Dark Tower, but haven't done anything on the villains. Actually, maybe villain isn't quite the word for all of them. Certainly, the Crimson King is villainous, but Mia is more of a single-minded, selfish antagonist. Anywho, I decided to do… Read More

Back to the Dark Tower – Susannah, Jake, and Oy Drawing (1/13/2018) - It's been a couple weeks since I finished the Dark Tower series, and I still find myself thinking about it. I suppose that's a good indicator of a fantastic story; that your mind wanders back to it even after you've put it aside. Although I'm sure I'll read the series… Read More

My Experience Wearing a Fitness Tracker for a Year (1/11/2018) - In late February 2017, I started wearing a fitness tracking band. I bought a Fitbit Charge 2 HR, which tracks all sorts of wonderful bits of data such as steps, heart rate, sleep, and probably other stuff. I've been wearing it a lot less often lately, but for most of… Read More

Round 2 with Color, Dad and Youngest Daughter (1/7/2018) - Now that I've gotten my first attempt using colored pencils down, I decided to jump right back into the fire and try again. I think I learned a couple of things from the first attempt, so I figured it would be good get right back into it while the lessons are… Read More

First Attempt at Art with Color (1/6/2018) - This may be a little surprising, but I've never really worked with color. Well, back when I was a kid in school I'm sure I painted something. But, in terms of art as a hobby, I haven't branched out at all from my basic graphite pencil. Exploring other websites via… Read More

Totinos Pizza and Chili (1/3/2018) - I'm a grown adult, rapidly approaching 40 years old. I've got children, a mortgage, probably a bunch of other stuff that might suggest a mature individual with grown-up tastes. Well, I think most people who know me might laugh at the "grown-up tastes" portion of that statement. I can find… Read More

Airline Fleet Totals, Leg Room Analysis Revisited (1/1/2018) - Happy New Year, all! I'm going to start 2018 by revisiting something I've wanted to take another crack at for a while. Four months ago, I wrote a post about carrier/aircraft seat pitch data, inspired by an article about American Airlines ordering new planes with diminished leg room. I found… Read More

Reflections on the Dark Tower Series (Spoilers Everywhere) (12/29/2017) - I finished the last mainline book in the Dark Tower series yesterday, and my head is swimming with thoughts and feelings about it. If you haven't read the series and plan to, I recommend abandoning ship on this post! I'm going to talk spoilers from the last book and throughout… Read More

Wedding Present for Some Friends (12/25/2017) - This Christmas, we were excited to attend an additional event beyond the usual family get-togethers. My wife's close friend for the last two decades was getting married, and she was the Matron of Honor. Also, our oldest got to be the flower girl. My wife and her friend met in high… Read More

Twitter Account Analytics (12/17/2017) - A few weeks ago, I was thinking about my two Twitter accounts; one personal and one for this site. I was wondering if there was a tool that would allow me to export or web-scrape my Twitter history into .xls or .csv, so I could crank out some pivot tables.… Read More

Cryptocurrency Experiment – New Set of Coins, End of Year Update (12/16/2017) - As we approach the new year, the cryptocurrency markets are booming once again. It seems like all major altcoins are surging, and Bitcoin itself is approaching $20,000. At this point, my cryptocurrency purchase experiment is approaching the five month mark. I had purchased coins in three separate batches, but now… Read More

A Tribute to Faith No More, the Greatest Band of All Time (12/16/2017) - Around 1999, as I was finishing high school, some guys I started hanging around with (who would become lifelong friends) introduced me to Faith No More. I had heard the band before; most people are familiar with the song Epic, and at the time a couple singles from their 1997… Read More

Fond Memories of Star Trek – Picard, Data, and La Forge (12/10/2017) - When I was a kid, one of my favorite shows was Star Trek the Next Generation. The series landed right in time to entertain a certain nerdy little kid, with new episodes airing between the time I was six to 13 years old. Outside of the Next Generation series, I… Read More

Dak Prescott and Jason Witten Sketch (12/9/2017) - Despite the fact that the Dallas Cowboys have consistently rewarded fan loyalty over the past two decades with a hefty serving of mediocrity, I am a lifelong fan. I grew up watching the Cowboys, and because they were winning Super Bowls when I was young, I sort of thought that… Read More

Family Portrait, Thanksgiving Scene (This One Needs Work) (11/27/2017) - This one seemed simple enough, since I've been doing so many family sketches. I set out to draw a scene from a Thanksgiving dinner out with my mom, sister, brother-in-law, wife, and our two little ones. Unfortunately, not all art is destined to actually work...and this one I think falls… Read More

Cryptocurrency Experiment, Thanksgiving Update (11/26/2017) - Although I just wrote an update on my cryptocurrency experiment about a week ago, I felt the need to write another. Over Thanksgiving weekend, prices started jumping for some reason. I really have no idea why a few have surged so rapidly, but I wanted to show which coins are… Read More

Group Scene of My Granny, Mom, Sister, and the Girls (11/19/2017) - I've discussed in a post a few weeks ago (or was that longer?) how I wanted to draw my Granny. I've also wanted to get a few more family members to paper, including my mom and sister, but hadn't gotten to them yet either. Well, I finally captured Granny's likeness,… Read More

Tiny Art Show Opening at the River Oaks Arts Center (11/18/2017) - Way back in September, someone told me about an art show in Alexandria, Louisiana that featured only "tiny art." All entries for this show had to had to by 5" x 5" x 5" or smaller. It sounded interesting, and I had just gotten back into drawing; I figured I… Read More

Serious-Minded Baby Achieving Maximum Cheesiness (11/17/2017) - I've said this before - I have difficulty drawing small babies. This may not be surprising, but I have a long-winded theory as to why. I think most babies look very similar, but parents have some sort of innate biological drive to recognize their infants even with the slightest differences.… Read More

Cryptocurrency Experiment, 3 Month Status Update (11/16/2017) - In early August, I wrote about my experiences learning about cryptocurrency, and my first dive in to purchase a few coins. Stemming from my disappointment on missing the boat with Bitcoin's tremendous growth over the last few years, I wanted to buy some other coins and see what happens with… Read More

Another Sketch with my Oldest, Alternate Title “Tired Dad” (11/15/2017) - Well, I'm sure it seems like the prevailing theme for all these drawings, but here's another a did of me with my oldest kiddo. I actually started this one in the same session as the last one I did (her dancing, me flailing about), and I finally finished it yesterday.… Read More

Dancing Dad – Drawing from a Video (11/12/2017) - A couple months ago, we took the family to North Park Mall in Dallas. While we wandered around, we came across a live song-and-dance thing for kids. It was a guy named "David Chicken," who played guitar, sang, and did fun interactive stuff with the kids in the audience. My… Read More

Sketch of the Entire Family, No Planning (11/4/2017) - Last night, after putting the kids to bed, I was smacked with an urge to try to draw my entire family. I've drawn my wife and I together, and I've drawn our girls a couple of times, but I haven't done a sketch with all four of us as a… Read More

Quest for a New Phone – Google Pixel 2 vs Pixel 2XL vs Samsung Galaxy (11/3/2017) - A couple months ago, as my Samsung Galaxy S7 really started to show its age via slowdowns and battery degradation, I started surveying the current smartphone landscape to see what was available. My wife and I both use Galaxy S7 phones, and we each decided it was time to upgrade.… Read More

Sketches from Final Fantasy, Inspired by Amano’s “The Sky” (10/28/2017) - A few weeks ago, Amazon had a really great deal going; sign up for an Audible (audio book) trial, and get a free hardcover book. After browsing a bit, I found this book called The Sky by Yoshitaka Amano. This is a re-release of a limited edition set, containing three hardcover… Read More

Dirk Nowitzki, Basketball Legend (10/12/2017) - To me, no player exemplifies Dallas sports like Dirk Nowitzki. Texas is obviously wild about football, and the Cowboys are the lead dog in terms of area sports teams (despite their amazing run of mediocrity over the last two decades). You could certainly also make an argument that most Dallas-area… Read More

Dark Tower Drawing – Campfire Outside the City of Lud (10/8/2017) - In my last post, I discussed an idea for a drawing related to Stephen King's Dark Tower series. I wanted to sketch Roland and his crew outside of Lud, probably by a campfire. In the first article, I talked about some of the challenges I anticipated based on my limitations… Read More

Planning for a Dark Tower Drawing (10/8/2017) - Lately, I've been really into the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I've always been a big Stephen King fan, and I enjoy fantasy novels, so it's actually really strange that it's taken me so long to start the series. I'm currently on book 4, Wizard and Glass; so I'm… Read More

Profile View Portrait, Large Drawing (10/7/2017) - I spent some time drawing yesterday evening, partially inspired by a desire to clean up an older sketch. This portrait of Julia Roberts isn't new, but it's actually one of the largest drawing I have ever done (around 2' X 1.something'). I think I've actually improved on some of my… Read More

Excel Basics – Building Data, Using Pivot Tables (10/6/2017) - My family and I recently went to dinner with some friends, and the topic of Excel came up (I know how to party right?). A couple of people mentioned they wish they knew more about Excel; this got me pumped up! Since we don't live in the same city, in… Read More

Website Milestone (10/5/2017) - This is surely not a huge deal for many websites, but from my perspective, this site hit a rather large milestone today. Good ol' jonamdall.com just had its 10,000th hit! For a small-time hobbyist like me, that seems really huge and quite unlikely to have ever happened. So, as a… Read More

Excel Function Cheat Sheet (10/4/2017) - 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. As part of that data crunching, I've also utilized a wide variety of functions and formulas to process data. I… Read More

Mass Shooting Post-Vegas Data Update, Frustration with Politicians, and Some Ideas (10/3/2017) - Once again, we have to face another horrifying mass shooting event. This time, it was the worst mass shooting event in U.S. history. It's frustrating to see this happen again with the understanding that our country is unlikely to anything to do anything but repeat the same slogans, with politicians… Read More

Is it Worth it to Wait? Analysis of Home Prices in Booming Markets (9/26/2017) - My wife and I have recently been exploring moving from Louisiana back to where we both grew up; Dallas, Texas. It's home sweet home for us, but we haven't lived there in quite a few years. Since we left, housing prices have apparently been booming...which is causing us some worry.… Read More

Tribute to Some Good Folks (9/23/2017) - This week, my grandmother on my mother's side (we all call her Granny) had heart surgery. Fortunately, everything seems to have gone very well. She's recovering nicely, and has physically improved quite a bit even after only five days. She's my only grandparent, and my two little ones' only great-grandparent.… Read More

Tiny Art Show Update, Logistics and Another Drawing (9/16/2017) - This is just a bit of an update to an article from a few days ago. I wrote about my interest in drawing something for the 2nd Annual 5x5x5 Show Miniature Works at the River Oaks Square Arts Center (original article: Contest Drawing - Tiny Art). I finished a 5" x 5" drawing of… Read More

Contest Drawing – Tiny Art (9/8/2017) - A co-worker told me recently about an interesting art show coming up; it's called the 2nd Annual 5x5x5 Show Miniature Works at the River Oaks Square Arts Center in Alexandria, Louisiana. This guy makes custom fishing lures, and entered some in last year's show. Even though I've never in my… Read More

Proposal Drawing (9/5/2017) - Now that I've got my mind on drawing again (here's my first drawing in years), I realized there is something that I haven't uploaded to this site anywhere. It's from way back in 2011, but it's a meaningful one to me. This is sort of corny, but I'll tell the… Read More

Sports Salaries Part 2, Positions and Players (9/4/2017) - Author's Note: This article was originally published with a major data error, skewing salaries in favor of NBA positions. It has been corrected, and should now accurately reflect position comparisons across these leagues. In December 2017, when checking this site's stats, I saw I was getting hits from a podcast website… Read More

Sports Salaries Part 1, Teams & Leagues (9/3/2017) - A co-worker and I were talking about salaries in the various U.S. sports leagues not too long ago. The conversation started by discussing which sports had the highest paid players, probably triggered by some recent signing or related news. Then, we started speculating about which sports or athletes would pay… Read More

Getting Back into Art (9/2/2017) - Even though I have always enjoyed it, it's been years since I've actually sat down, got focused, and drawn anything. I've sketched friends, family, self-portraits, and my wife, but never my two little ones. Is it a coincidence that I have a toddler and infant and somehow haven't been able… Read More

Cryptocurrency Revisited (3-4 Weeks Later) (9/1/2017) - About three weeks ago, I wrote about my first experience purchasing cryptocurrency, covering the basics about coins, exchanges, and wallets. In short, I purchased 21 different cryptocurrencies of varying base price and circulation, primarily to learn the ins-and-outs. My ulterior motive was to view a few of them as lottery… Read More

Solar Eclipse (8/21/2017) - The big news of the day was the solar eclipse that was visible in a line across the U.S. Unfortunately, I was well south of the areas of 100% "totality" (total coverage of the sun by the moon). According to a map published by NASA, I was in the 75%… Read More

Database Fun – Art Collection (8/20/2017) - I've posted quite a bit regarding my love for Excel and Pivot Tables, but I haven't actually mentioned my other source for data-crunching fun - Microsoft Access. Occasionally, I'll come across some data structure or method of viewing that can't be accomplished using Excel (or can't be accomplished well). That's… Read More

How to Increase Website Traffic…Apparently (8/16/2017) - Ages ago in the early 2000s, I got an itch to learn about web design, so I tried to teach myself how to create a website using html. I was able to whip up an amazingly terrible site called jonsource.com. I coded the thing in Notepad, paid some company to… Read More

Mass Shooting Research Part 3; State Comparisons, GVA Data (8/15/2017) - I mentioned in a previous article on this topic that I also wanted to explore the state-by-state numbers, but needed to finish processing data from Census.gov. Well, that is now done, so I'm going to explore what I found. I think this will be my last post on mass shooting… Read More

Matching Men’s Coat and Pants (8/13/2017) - Alright, I admit that this is probably embarrassing and sad...I have difficulty making good fashionable choices. Especially when we start talking about branching out to different colors, matching clothes, and all that. Honestly, if I could get away with it, I'd just wear khaki shorts and a black t-shirt every… Read More

Federal Budget Graphics (Old Data) (8/13/2017) - I was going through some of my older spreadsheets and data sets, and came across some materials I put together based on a CNN online article. Unfortunately, this is from way back in the ancient times (2012), so I'm not sure it's still as interesting. On the other hand, we… Read More

Cryptocurrency Exploration (8/10/2017) - Prior to this week, I honestly didn't know too much about cryptocurrency. I knew the basics, mostly hearing or reading about Bitcoin. I knew there were other types, but had no clue how many. I've even got a "if only I would have" story about it; I considered buying some… Read More

Airline and Airplane Seat Comparisons (8/10/2017) - Updated research on this topic can be found here: Airline Fleet Totals, Leg Room Analysis Revisited. This more recent article integrates fleet totals for a more complete view of seat pitch distribution across airlines. Research on the topic of airline and airplane seat size comparisons was triggered by an article… Read More

Mass Shooting Research Part 2 & Rampage Events (8/9/2017) - In the previous post, I explored Mother Jones' data on mass shooting events in the U.S. What they collected was impressive in depth, but only seems to cover a small subset of violence that falls under the "mass shooting" definition (four or more shot and/or killed in a single event… Read More

Mass Shooting Research Part 1; Mother Jones Data (8/7/2017) - This is part one of a four post series. The most recent post includes an after-Vegas data update, summary of all graphs, and possible solutions to the issue. I get made fun of quite a bit for this, but one of my favorite things is crunching data using Pivot Tables… Read More

Survey Results…Revisited (8/6/2017) - Since I recently found out that Google Forms had a large update, I went back to my old Survey on this site to see if everything still worked. For the most part, it did! I was also hoping for some improvements to the Results html/embed process, but unfortunately it's still… Read More

Google Local Guide Widget (8/6/2017) - Is it possible to add a widget or something that shows my Google Local Guide information? Well, let's give it a shot! I want it to look like this: But instead, it seems to look like this...not quite what I had in mind. Jon • Level 6 4,672 points Learn… Read More

Diet Coke and Mentos, Round 1 (8/16/2011) - So, the sidewalk egg-frying experiment made me think about some of our previous science experiments after work.  The first one was an attempt at the classic Diet Coke and Mentos explosion.  If you're not familiar with it, hop on over to YouTube.  It's a fairly popular Bill Nye the Science… Read More

Fried Eggs (8/14/2011) - It's been so blasted hot in Texas this summer, there have been some news stories asking if it was hot enough to cook various food products on various surfaces outside.  For example, bake cookies on a car hood, or fry an egg on the sidewalk.  Well, some co-workers and I… Read More

Shortcode Test (8/1/2011) - Well, I'm still trying to figure out how to display quiz or survey results from a Google Document form.  In trying to figure this out, I've been looking into this Wordpress "shortcode."  Apparently, shortcode allows you to pop in some simple code to provide some commonly-sought-after functionality that would otherwise… Read More

Quiz Results (7/16/2011) - After significant trial and error, I finally nailed displaying survey results on this blog!  It's fairly easy, now that I've figured it out.  Just publish a page in your Google Spreadsheet (you can create a graph tab rather than publishing the entire thing).  After that, copy the embedded link and… Read More

Quiz time! (7/14/2011) - I just figured out another fun thing I can do (potentially), so let's see if it works. I created a very important quiz, housed in a Google Documents form. In theory, I can actually include this quiz in this blog, and the answers will still be stored properly! Well, let's… Read More

Go Mavs! (6/13/2011) - I just wanted to type out an official congratulations to the Dallas Mavericks.  They rocked the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals last night, and I couldn't be happier about it! This post-season for the Mavs seemed almost scripted like a movie, it was so full of amazing and almost… Read More