Christopher Sleeps

I drew this while Christopher slept on the couch. I am experimenting with different styles and am thinking about design when I draw. Here I just used hatching and tried to keep everything on a diagonal.

Illustration Friday - Focused

I drew this portrait from life. My son Andrew was sitting at the kitchen table and was very focused on his homework.

Fan and Sleeping Dog

My Son Andrew

This is my 16 year old son Andrew. I drew him while he watched TV.

Illustration Friday - Entangled

When I saw the prompt entangled, I immediately thought of a thicket of bushes in my backyard. The tangles have long fascinated me, and I have been wanting to draw them for some time now. This prompt was a good excuse. I drew from life for about an hour and then switched to imagination. I developed the drawing in pencil and at the end added some colored pencil, colored pen, and pastel pencil. I left part of the drawing undone, because I think it looks more interesting that way.

Pumps

I first drew these pumps using water soluble graphite pencils, but I didn't like the results. So I went over them with charcoal. I don't think these two mediums were meant to go together, but I like the results.

My dog Shelty.

Hand and Foot

The foot is mine; I was looking down at it. It looks like a hobbit's foot, doesn't it?

Skull and Watch

I drew the skull and watch from life in pencil, and then I adjusted the color in Photoshop Elements.

Bali Dancer and Flowers

I am slowly getting back into the drawing habit, after a month hiatus. I drew a little here and there but not much. This drawing of a woman was inspired by a "Flashback" photo of a Bali dancer in the current issue of National Geographic; the photo was originally published in National Geographic in 1939. The flowers were drawn from life.

Foot Plus Shoe

Body Parts

Illustration Friday: Caution

Caution: Don't run with scissors!

Here is double trouble:

Micron red and black pen and Prismacolor pencils on Canson Mi-Tientes Pastel paper.

Plaid

Lately I am enjoying rendering complex textures and patterns. Here, I try to give the impression of plaid without drawing every detail.

Illustration Friday - Wrapped

Just got back from my summer vacation in the Adirondack Mountains. I did this drawing in my sketch book, using a mechanical pencil. I was inspired by my teenage son asleep in our hotel room in Ticonderoga, New York. Thanks to moonlight coming through the window, I could see the general shape of his sleeping figure in the middle of the night, wrapped in a blanket. I quickly sketched the scene, as best I could in the moonlight, and then abstracted the drawing in an attempt to make the drawing more ambiguous and mysterious.

Max

This is my cat Max. Blue gel ink pen (Gelly Roll Fine Point).

Tissue Paper Flower

This is a tissue paper flower from my son Andrew. Graphite and colored pencil.

Large

This is a continuous line drawing of my dog Shelty. Simple can be good.

Toy Story

This is one of Christopher's toy knights, drawn in Micron pen. I love drawing action figures. They don't move!

Last Friday, NPR aired a piece called Artists Make Money By Forgoing Traditional Galleries. The piece profiles 3 visual artists, exploring how each makes a living. None make a living selling their art, but each nevertheless is able to create art and survive. Check it out.

Lady Liberty

This is a pen and ink drawing of the Statue of Liberty, drawn from a souvenir statuette from Ellis Island. My paternal grandparents left Russia in 1917, went to Germany, and then emigrated to the United States in 1925. They entered the United States via Ellis Island. My maternal grandparents also left Russia in 1917 and emigrated to Canada.

I did some consulting on Wall Street about 5 years ago and had an apartment in Battery Park, half a block from the Hudson and a view of the Statue of Liberty. The statue is beautiful. If I could afford to live in that area of New York City, I would move there in a minute.

I used a variety of Micron pen colors and experimented with blending colors.

Happy July 4th!