This drawing looks a bit like one of those "how are you feeling?" hospital charts. It starts out okay ("smiling cat", "drunk pirate"), and descends into full Lovecraftian Horror. I was driving toward a local town known for its unpleasant yokels, which probably explains the progression. Today, for the record, I'm 75% Apathetic Lumberjack, 5% glassy-eyed cat, and 20% Vampire Waluigi.
Poppies are among my favorite flowers---vibrant AND delicate. Great swaths of "bread poppies" garnish our garden. We harvest seeds for lemon-seed cake and poppy-seed rolls. (No, we don't harvest that other stuff.) They reseed generously and we have beautiful crops of red and purple flowers each year. I've been working on this colored pencil drawing for the past week. Enclosed are some images of the progress over that time.
Progression 2 of 5. In this one I added shading to his face and neck and scetched out the hair. His ears were a bit tricky too since they are as distinctive as his eyes.
This is a work in progress, as I'll be adding more spots to my neighborhood map. You can also view the map with interactivity on my site: https://www.colorsnack.com/the-cedars-neighborhood-map/
Just a random character I drew whilst I was on the plane on the 17th of June,I managed to color the drawing today now I'm really exhausted,I'll upload the coloring progress tomorrow on my channel
Final Drawing. Progression drawing 7 of 7. This is an earlier drawing of a how-to video from Emmy Kalia. All credit to her. Link: https://youtu.be/80ewdDwAVk4
Progression 4 of 6. Here the drawing starts to come together. I built on the layers I put down in the earlier portions of the drawing. Spent some time on the beard and mouth.
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.
Progression image 5 of 6. 11x14 Marker paper, Medium Graphite Pencils (asst. B-5B). Here the drawing started to come together. I used a metal tip to a mechanical pencil and dragged it along the paper to create the highlight effects in her hair. It is effective but irreversible, so I don't do it very often.
I try to do a couple of birds a week (obviously don't post them all). This is based on an on-line photo reference drawn with a "soft" Palomino Blackwing pencil and a 4B Koh-I-Noor Hardtmuth Progress woodless pencil. Hence the dark velvety black.
2023, Ballpoint Pen on 5” x 8” (10” x 8” Double page spread) acid free Moleskine sketchbook paper, Adobe Photoshop. Based on a photo (by David Redfern/Getty Images) of the singer, songwriter and civil rights activist performing at the BBC Television Centre in London, January 1966. Last sketchbook piece for 2023. 2024 will be my last year on this platform - thank you all for appreciating and following my artistic progress.
