Amdall Gallery

20 randomly selected posts about art from Amdall Gallery’s archives. These include normal graphite pencil or soft colored pencil drawings by Jon. Enjoy!

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 group. Usually for something like this, I'd draw a grid to help me with proportions, but this time I wanted to dive right in. I really wasn't sure how that would work out, because it's outside my normal process. As I started, I thought about all the great advice I've… 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 recordings and for independent artists in unique genres. One niche that I've always enjoyed the solo guitarist shared content, including virtuoso demonstrations and street performance (also called "busking"). I've got a few favorites that I watch every so often; Mariusz Goli, Tina S, Andre Antunes, and a few others. I… 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 in the time since then than I had in total when I did this one. So, it's becoming an fascinating exercise in trying to imagine what I was thinking at the time, and what I've learned since. This one started out with some promise, but sometimes paintings just don't go… 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 painting seem more accessible, and to someone without training or experience, that is just the message I needed to motivate me to pick up a paint brush. So, even though my favorite subject matter is portraits of people, I love including some alla prima Bob Ross-style backgrounds in my painting… 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 Finals series against the Miami Heat. The Mavs were down by 15 with like seven minutes to go, and Dirk had an incredible drive to the bucket to win the game. After hitting on some decent video game sketches last week, immediately followed by a couple that weren't very good,… 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 life entered anything into an art show, I suddenly had this wild idea to go for it. I've still got this itch to draw, so why not give it a shot? More information on the River Oaks 5x5x5 Show, check out the Call for Entry: https://www.callforentry.org/festivals_unique_info.php?ID=4449 River Oaks is inviting… 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 during its peak popularity. Something I didn't touch on though is that there is a downside I didn't consider to being "on time" for a great show - the wait for more. I tore through all three seasons of Stranger Things in a massive binge, but it still took me… 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 a bit more. I'll follow my standard format here, which is to share an image of the painting, the Instagram time lapse, and some of the verbiage I used on social media. Then, I'll embed the YouTube video that features this piece. EPSON scanner image View this post on Instagram… 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, so we’ve had a good opportunity to settle in at this point. We've slid into new routines, and part of that has developed from an accidental discovery. One day recently, I was trying to set up an antenna I bought for our game room television. It's a Roku TV, so… 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 want your hero to be? Will you accept the cycle and your place in it? Will you become a cowardly king, a lonely god, a monster, or a memory held by the next hero? It's a deceptively deep story; on its surface it appears simple, but unwinds into something quite… 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 somewhat less active on the artwork front, I've accumulated a larger than usual backlog of ideas. That's sort of a nice feeling since I'm so often unsure what to draw next. Of my inspirational backlog, I've actually got two drawings that I started but never finished. I did an outline… 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 world, which really doesn't happen often anymore. Growing up, this immersion occurred more often, as it seems like every Super Nintendo RPG pulled me in and inspired sketches. But I can count on one hand the games that had that effect on me as an adult; Elder Scroll Skyrim, Dragon's… 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 great memories of all the typical "hey we're finally adults"-type stuff we did. Thinking about these times, I realized I have some good subjects for a series of sketches on friends from my hometown. One fun thing we used to do was play football on the weekends. We didn't do it… 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 artwork) of the winner's choice. I think the last custom portrait giveaway went well and had solid participation - as usual, I've got the motivation to draw but few subject ideas. So it seems like a good time to do another. Everything for the most part is going to proceed… 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 has to make difficult choices that will affect his world and all the others connected to it. It's truly an epic tale, and in my opinion The Dark Tower compares very favorably to other lengthy fantasy classics like Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire. The… 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. Especially when it comes to color; skin tones seem more realistic than they did early on, and I'm laying down color in thicker/more complete layers. There's still tons of critiques I have (weak ability to draw straight lines, laziness on backgrounds, unimaginative creation, etc.), but I'm glad to see progress.… 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 Kilmer and Warwick Davis. It was directed by Ron Howard, and produced by George Lucas. In my opinion, Willow is a really underrated movie. It's an enjoyable adventure, with an entertaining cast and fun banter - especially between Davis's Willow Ufgood and Kilmer's Madmartigan character. I was a kid when… 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 start with can impact the finished product, whether you use a pencil outline, underpainting, or just rough shapes. I'm probably going to contradict myself quite a bit here though, because somehow, I also concurrently believe that the initial outline doesn't have to be perfect. There is a huge degree of… 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 are the easiest to make, but it seems like videos are the most informative. And the 1 minute videos are the easiest for views to consume, but are they as informative as longer ones? Finding the optimal, balanced solution is the name of the game here! Anyhow, since the question… 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 July. But that just happened to be right as my family and I were preparing to move to Texas! It's a move we found out about around six months ago and have been looking forward to since then. And really, we've been hoping for the opportunity to move back here… Read More