Portrait of my Uncle Ronnie

This piece is around 24"x36"- it's close to life-size. It was completed last summer, but I haven't gotten the chance to take a picture of it until now. It's currently hanging in the terminal at the Winter Haven Airport about 20 minutes from my house.

I did this for a local aviation-themed competition, but it turned out to be a great exercise for my portrait skills- capturing a likeness, incorporating a photo into an environment, etc. This was only photo-reference.

Any critique would be awesome, thanks guys!

Captain Ron, 2012, 24"x36", oil on canvas.

Ink and a sponge

One or the Other, 12"x12", ink

It's No.15 of 30 in this series of portraits I've been posting recently- the medium is ink on illustration board. I drew an incredibly simple geometric head with strong shadows on tracing paper, then cut a stencil from it. I applied ink with a sponge over the stencil- I expected a clean application but the tracing paper rolled up from the water and the edges became incredibly organic, which I love. I'll keep this one in the toolbox. Last was a coat of matte medium to seal it, but it pulled a bit of the ink of and brushed it over the surface.

More to come!

Graphite

With a bit of ink, gesso, and matte medium.

This one is No.12/30.

ketchup

30 portraits project is complete and I'll be posting more over the course of this week and next- here's one, for now...

tracing paper

drawing on tracing paper is putting me in a good place right now. There's so much variety in line i can get, and just knowing that whatever i draw can be easily torn off, taped down, traced, scanned, whatever...

I may or may not be doing final lifework on it in the future, though I'd like some heavier stuff than what I've got right now. Vellum is looking really attractive, especially after rifling through so many images by Sergio Martinez. Check out this Line and Colors post on him- it contains links to his 4 (Four) separate blogs: http://www.linesandcolors.com/2010/01/18/sergio-martinez/ He has an amazing technique of doing an incredible drawing on transparent vellum, and then using oil or wax crayons diluted with turpenoid on the backside for his color. The way the color ghosts through the paper creates moods and atmosphere like nothing else (in his hands, anyway). Definitely check out his stuff. 

I'm currently working on an illustration for an incredible short story titled "To Build a Fire" by Jack London. Read it if you've got the time: http://www.jacklondons.net/buildafire.html

Just a couple pieces of life drawing for today.

drawlings

More drawings from the past week or so

Portraits

First couple portraits done for George Pratt's 30 heads in 30 days assignment. They must all be different media. The first is acrylic and gouache, and the second is watercolor, acrylic, and oil pastel.