Zoomed in shot of "Pattern Interrupt". 2020. Size: 32" x 40" / Micron pens on archival museum board. This piece was all drawn freehand - no rulers or measuring tools were used to create this artwork.
Artwork on "the other side" - playing with the bleed-through from the watercolor and intuitiviely allowing the shapes to arise. Created using watercolor, coffee, ink, graphic pens and unipen
Taken me a while to finish this one - not feeling very focused lately. Also, I restricted myself to using Bic’s yellow ink, which is way more vibrant than the cheap 10-colour ink click pens that I usually use.
Magnolias are spring harbingers in our garden, as well as our annual ornamental cherry display. Star magnolias are over, tulip magnolias are in full swing, and the occasional Southern magnolia is starting. Perhaps I should have done this with a gouache paint, but I used colored pencils. Oh well. Outlined after with various sizes of Pigma Micron pens.
Our garden: www.edgewoodgarden.com
Our Dining Room is my favorite room in the house. Every family meal we eat at home happens there - breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Meal times are our sacred family time to share our day, our thoughts, our struggles, our successes, etc. We do have a breakfast area. But aside from homework, projects, or reading the newspaper, the breakfast area doesn't get much use unless needed for overflow from the dining room when we have visitors.
It's not about waiting around for inspiration to strike, it's about showing up every single day -- and maybe something amazing happens that day, or maybe it doesnt...Regardless, Rise and Grind ♡
I’m often asked about my Bic pen drawings and how I do them. It starts with a good foundational drawing, the ballpoint pen part is just trying to colour within the lines. I try to do my best to explain the process, but the best way to show my progress is by posting my efforts to master pen drawings over the span of 3 or so years. I have been doodling/drawing with ballpoint pens as far back as I can remember - they were cheap, readily available and always lying around the house. It wasn’t until I was bored during a particularly long team meeting-conference call (around 2016-17) that I started to think about the possibilities of ballpoint pens as serious portrait illustration tools. My first experiments with full colour ink portrait drawings were rather crude, but that’s the point of learning new techniques—as long as the curiosity and the love of drawing is there, you can transfer that skill and passion into any medium. Remember, the most exquisite drawings and paintings you see didn’t materialise fully formed, they started out as failed experiments. Failure after failure after failure. It’s important to remember this when you get discouraged (I've failed spectacularly over the years). The only difference between the accomplished artist and the beginner is hundreds of hours of practice. Talent can only get you so far. It’s the hard work that you do behind the scenes that makes your work look effortless. Keep doodling. Keep learning. Stay curious.
Today’s urban sketching effort. I tried to capture light coming through windows at St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. Posca markers, brush pens and water soluble pencil on brown A4
Watercolor and India Ink on Yupo paper. If there is any single way to let go of detail and think simply, it is by using watercolor on Yupo paper. You basically have to surrender control and just see what happens.
"Whirlwind 22”, an original drawing. Micron pens on archival paper. Size: 4” x 6”. Title, signature, and date in the back of the drawing. This drawing is the 22nd in a series of drawings posted over a period of 100 days. The original post date on this drawing was September 22, 2020.
“Whirlwind 9”, an original drawing. Micron pens on archival paper. Size: 4” x 6”. Title, signature, and date in the back of the drawing. This drawing is the 9th in a series of drawings posted over a period of 100 days. The original post date on this drawing was September 9, 2020.
Ink and Watercolor sketch of octopus. Normally I start with a pencil outline, then go over it with micron pens. But I'm learning to skip the pencil step and just sketch with ink. I helps you not to overthink things. Once you lay the ink line down on the paper it's there to stay. You can't erase and there isn't an undo like you have when working digitally. You just have to work around any "mistakes" you make. I'm also working on sketching faster because I just don't have that much free time these days. Trying to produce a new sketch every day is a real challenge.
Test my new Moleskine watercolor sketchbook with different pens. Waves with Pentel brushpen , clouds by Lamy fountain pen and sky in the middle using Unipin
A recent doodle of mine completed that was requested by my sister. This was done with Pigma Micron pens sizes ranging from 0.005 - 0.08. The main star of the show was my 0.01 pen. I loved the tiny detailing and shading my expanding my line giving it the realistic effect.
