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 was joking (which should have been obvious in hindsight), but
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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 post and one on website stats, but I was traveling
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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 Bell shows. In part two, I’m going to talk about
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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 as I sketch. I’ve got two in the rotation, both
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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 smaller sketch suffered in quality partially because of that. The
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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 natural place my brainstorming goes is, “which people/family member combinations
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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, a couple guys chatting, and a group shot. One common
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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
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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 be the happiest people I’ve ever seen.” I guess that’s
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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 again featured my buddy who was already in the first
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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 handful of years! Part two features a couple of buddies
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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
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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 past didn’t quite look like her. The first attempt I
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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 for my proposal, which looked like her but was no
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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
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