Watercolor on Aquarelle. This piece is incredibly close to my heart. It closely resembles the emotions that I was going through when I painted it. I tried to replicate the numbness and the restlessness that I felt in the eyes.
Skip James is the man. I’ve been wanting to do something music related. I sketched this a year or two ago. It was fun to bring it into Procreate and add doodles, lettering, color and more elements like the guitar neck. I’m always looking for a way to combine my pencil with color and have it look like it really goes together. This one felt right.
This was so enjoyable to do. Hand drawn using black 0.03, 0.05 and 0.1 fine liners on A4 medium cartridge paper. 22.5 hours of work and made my eyes hurt!
I was tired of carrying around a bunch of Microns. I want one or two refillable pens so I started with buying a new Lamy AL-Star Fountain Pen. I love it. I got the medium nib and am able to get a nice range of line width from it. This and maybe a fine nib and I'll be all set for a travel kit. This is the first page I drew with it.
Outside my drawing table window are straight and weeping birches. We lost one of the birch trucks and, tragically, a beautiful OLD Japanese maple during an ice storm a few years ago. The third trunk is still in my mind's eye.
Gorgeous little Rupert the West Highland Terrier. He was drawn using black fine liners on A4. Love doing the animal portraits... I love it when their little eyes suddenly peep out the paper! Available as an A4 print.
Man, I’ve been random lately. I think my mind’s eye sees stuff that normal people don’t. That might make me abnormal. I’m kinda comfortable with that. Guess who’s going to be watching some Clint Eastwood tonight?
An article/rant/annotation to an illustration. A #Hackney bar and its flies.
This picture is not as sad and blue as it might at first seem, I promise.
It is early in the week and the pub becomes the territory of the most outspoken drinkers. Raised somewhere between Churchill and Harold MacMillan, a night such as this is time for them to spin out a yarn of nostalgic fantasy. Encouraged by the lack of a crowd and with space to fill, statements start to fly.
In the opening rounds the barman athletically hits back with factual blocks and reality-check haymakers; statistics and personal experiences are given. Two histories cross examined, one where 1982 means Thatcher and the Falklands, the other renders Reagan and the AIDS crisis. Stoicism and national pride vs mental health and realism.
In the latter rounds the barman is fatigued, swaying on the backbar, glasses begin to stack up as form begins to drop. The older men seem stronger than ever.
The barflies come in close now, they scrutinise his generations work ethic and make wild political comments on poverty, immigrants and the minimum wage.
The barman is close to sheer bloody despair, he maintains his defence and focuses on breathing while maintaining his professional stance.
But at the end of the night the barman knows HE will ring that bell, they will politely leave and they will return again in a week and maybe, just maybe there will be a change, common ground or maybe at least polite silence.
But what these interactions have given despite the salt in the eye is community and an exchange between generations, culture and class of those participating. No home is ever straight forward, no relative without their good and bad traits and in a world where we often slide into echo chambers online or in our physical environments, the pub is still a place where society is family, face to face, pint to pint. Or maybe it's just a room with alcohol on tap?
A DISPUTE IN SIGN LANGUAGE.
From Favorite Folktales from Around the World by Jane Yolen.
And this is what the poultry dealer related: “The priest pointed with one finger to my eyes, meaning to take out my eye. I pointed with two fingers to imply, I would take out both his eyes."
...
At the same time the priest’s friends questioned him: “What did you ask the Jew? What did he reply?” The priest related: “At first I pointed one finger, meaning that there is only one king. He pointed with two fingers, meaning that there are two kings, the King in Heaven and the king on earth."
A very closeup drawing in 4B, 6B, 8B pencil on Fabiano hotpress Studio paper. I bought some Pitt Graphite Matt pencils and wanted to give them a maiden voyage. They are much lighter on the scale of deep blacks than I expected. More like rarified F pencils. But I like them.
Here is a painting I made from observation on the top of Mont Bélair in Canada, just before sunset.
I am painting those in a 5x8 very convenient moleskin watercolor book. I previously eyeballed the dimensions of this book at 4x6 when I had no ruler to verify but I was slightly wrong. Now the info is exact. :)
haven't drawn her in a very long time but other than that she was fun to draw!she's the third female demon OC I created back when I was 17,she had a much more different look and she looked less like an demon princess and more like a succubus.I still haven't designed a crown for her yet I might give her some jeweled headband instead.she hides her eyes because as a royal she thinks that she should not have them exposed at all even though Eltrakarians have a lot of eyes.She is good friends with Prince Fedren,she is also older than him.perhaps I will make more of these OC drawings with descriptions soon.I forgot to include a color palette but I'll save it for a redraw or for another character drawing.
