Tag Archives: portrait

Experimenting with Light Sources

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 of his dad and two kids. It wasn’t especially taxing,

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Back to Paper for a Coworker Request

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 a portrait request! Actual subject requests are somewhat rare for

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Mark Hearts and Kids at the Dentist

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, you are probably aware of how frequently I draw my

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Drawing from Unsplash Photos

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

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Welcome to Flavortown

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 one of his shows on the Food Network; the one

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Ernie Hudson and The Crow

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, actor Ernie Hudson is awesome and I was disappointed that

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Long Term Goals and Sketch Impulsivity

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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Art on a Shopping Cart

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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More Parks and Recreation Art – Leslie Knope

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 sort of wore me out. It was pretty pathetic. Anyway,

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Starting 2019 with a Portrait Giveaway

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 exclusively for artwork. We’ve seen pretty solid engagement previously, and

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Ron Swanson, The Simpsons, and New Parents

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 it was, it got me thinking about how funny that

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Subject Counts and Wife Solo Portraits

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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Self Portrait, Shadow and Contrast Struggles

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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