Almost there... Looming Feeling 4

Well, I'm driving home to Chicago tomorrow, and I didn't quite meet my goal of finishing this before I left. It's been a slog of a drawing, and I'll have to add the finishing touches when I get back next week. Even then,  the ink is so damn glossy that its going to require some professional imaging to get a file worth posting and reproducing as a print, so look for the finished piece in a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, here's a preview of the beast chugging a jug of Carlo. This gives a good sense of the painted ink look too.

Process- Sal Meander

Ink & acrylic on canvas

Sal was a bootlegger on the Ohio in the early 1920's, garnering his grim reputation from his cruelty, complexion, and set of tiny needle-sharp teeth.

I made this tiny painting to test an idea for incorporating color into my ink-on-canvas work. My hope is to reduce frustration by laying down color first, as opposed to ruining a perfectly good ink drawing with a sloppy color job at the end. In the end, using an acrylic wash just didn't work as well as I wanted it to. The challenge now is to find a paint that will have the permanence of acrylics and the ability to water down well for backgrounds.

Here's a more specific breakdown of each step.

1- Apply coats of gesso to minimize rough canvas texture (probably could have done even more of this).
2- Rough pencil sketch.
3- Rough acrylic wash.
4- Refined acrylic wash.
5- India ink lines painted over wash.
6- Details added with both india ink and acrylic gesso.
7- Scratch that. Wasn't liking the background and decided to start over.
8- Background with ink wash.
9- Finishing touches.

First Look- That Looming Feeling #4

Here’s a glance at what I’m working on this week. This is a quick marker sketch trying to pin down the facial expression and posture of the central character in my Looming Feeling series of drawings. Look for a finished version next week.


Head over to my portfolio website to have a look at the previous three drawings in the series.

Daily Sketch- Hands

My other primary goal for the next few months is to spend at least an hour each day sketching subjects that I usually struggle with. Hopefully after some of this relatively intense exercise I'll gain a bit more fluency in these areas and maybe even create something worth sharing here.

Adrift #2

Ink on 5x7" canvas.

I've given myself a list of artistic goals for the summer, and one of them is to implement a distinct medium/style across numerous illustrations. My current plan is to work primarily with india ink on canvas, with some vague plans to bring color into the equation in later weeks. I thought it fitting to roll this style out with another small Adrift painting, but I also plan to use these materials to revisit my Looming Feeling series and some other ideas I have rolling around my head. Look for some process posts soon.

In case you missed it, here's Adrift #1 from last November.

Living Rock Growth

With summer just around the corner, I'll have enough time on my hands to crank out 2 or 3 updates a week. Until then, here's something else I've been working on...

This is a series of daily pictures taken over the course of two months of my Living Rock (Lithops) plant. This was during late winter/early spring, a period in the plant's cycle when even one instance of over-watering can be fatal. The four new leaves are able to grow by taking the water from the original two. 

I'm hoping to see a flower in the coming months. If so, I'll be sure to document it in a similar way.