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 tossed around the idea of another Dallas Mavericks sketch, since
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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 annoying to other shoppers because of how much space they
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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 or guessing – better to crunch the numbers and find
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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 some detailed practical advice for artists from an art critic
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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 a fun spreadsheet to make), but I’m sure my wife
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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 subjects. I selected some expressions/photo series of Shaquille O’Neal, John
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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 at least try to have a presence on elsewhere, just
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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 thing is pretty amazing; you say Einstein, I immediately know
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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 from the first “digital native” generation in particular: Memes. If
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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 its Halloween conclusion, it was enough to push me into
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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? Do I need a new challenge, like trying a new
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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 and then three posts! This does make sense though; summer
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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 up having to travel for work for a bit. In
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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 presents, and I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise. When
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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 inspiration. Since then, I’ve read some well-deserved criticism of this
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