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Colored pencil details on the wooden moldings on each step really brought them to life. At the very beginning I made an underpainting for the basic shapes of the staircase on pale grey paper: the sides of the stairs with grey watercolor, the shadow under each stair tread with grey wash, and brown for the wooden molding on the front of each step. The moldings were just flat brown, as you see on the left (BEFORE). Then I added highlights and shadow along the length of each mold

Making a better portrait The cats are finished. Because of the perspective (stairs get smaller as they go farther away from you) each cat would be significantly smaller than the previous one. I made the cats closer to the size they would be to eachother in real life. That is not technically correct. But it makes a better portrait. The perspective of the stairs is mathematically correct, each step proportionally smaller than the previous one. Your “mind’s eye” tells you theref

I love doing white fur on gray paper. It's so easy. The gray paper creates the shadows between hairs or clumps of hairs. Here's a closer view that shows what I'm talking about. White and two shades of light-grey pencils were used (French Grey 10% and French Grey 20%) to make the strokes that created the white parts of Bonnie's coat. The grey paper color was left showing to make the shadows between the hairs. I only added some darker grey in a few places like the center of Bon

I encourage artists not to copy photos slavishly. I rarely portray a photo exactly as it is without making artistic changes. Even when doing portraits, which have to be accurate to the subject, there are usually ways to change and improve what is in the photo. Very few photos are perfect just the way they are. When creating artwork out of my own inspiration (not commissioned by a client) I make all sorts of creative changes. A photo inspires me, it doesn't dictate to me. Here

AI is a very controversial subject among artists. It evokes strong reactions. My position as a professional artist with more than 40 years experience is that AI is a tool, like any other tool, that can be used - deliberately and mindfully - in the creation of original art. 1 I'm working on a colored pencil portrait of a Doberman named “JR”. Finding the right reference photo(s) to use for a portrait is a journey. That, and designing the composition for the piece, can take as l

Mothers carry us....in so many ways. Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers. Dog and cat moms too!

Portrait of Scout continued from PART ONE Scout portrait in progress 9 I’m not going to add the colored pencil grass details around the Frisbee figure until I finish the barn-hunt figure. The backgrounds of those two scenes - straw and grass - will have to fade/blend together at the edges. Since the portrayals of Scout are the most important thing, I want to finish the barn hunt figure first. Then create both the straw and grass backgrounds around the two action figures.

July 29 I'm starting a triple portrait of Border collie “Scout”. The following pictures show how I go about designing a complex portrait with multiple depictions of the individual….from the 60 photos of Scout that Annette sent to me. Scout is a registered Therapy Dog, and also does barn hunt and is a dedicated Frisbee-fetcher. 1 This is my outline drawing on a sheet of “Flannel Grey” Canson paper. It took 11 days of working with Annette on a layout design, to get to the poi

This album shows my technique for making straw in a scene. A whole lot of it. 1 In my last post, I had finished the Frisbee scene, and put in a bit of the straw detail around Scout’s barn-hunt figure on the gold underpainting. It looked like this: Next I have a whole lot of straw to fill in. If you read my post about barn hunt, you know that Scout is searching for rats hidden among straw. There will be a tunnel entrance below and in front of his face. That’s where you see th

Continuing Scout’s triple portrait. I’ve moved on to the second figure, an action pose - Scout running fast with his Frisbee. This one poses a dilemma: a blurry reference photo. Most people know me for my highly detailed, realistic style. I solved the challenge of using a reference photo that doesn't show any detail, by working in a different, more impressionistic style. The close-up of the pencil strokes in Pic 4 shows what I mean. A professional artist friend of mine often

How I made the underpainting for Scout’s portrait. I decided to do the underpainting after I completed Scout’s head-study with colored...

June 20 I’m starting a new portrait, of Raven. This is the 4th Border Collie portrait I’ve done for Cathy Nearman. Soon I’ll share more...

Wishes' portrait will be a challenging artwork. It’s not a complex piece, but it is a challenging one because of the values. (Value = how...

When I finish a portrait I tape it up on the wall of my studio, stand back and look at it, make an adjustment, stand back and look again,...

1 Raven's forehead and around the eye-socket on the left side are finished. I’ve put in Raven’s center white stripe down his nose as a...

Yesterday I had a debate on my Facebook page with Michael Joseph about whether copying a reference photo but changing things...

Prismacolor pencil on “Light Blue” Canson paper. In this piece I used the paper color as the primary color for the artwork. The sky is...

I had to create a “swatches map” to understand those tricky and deceptive values in Wishes’ face. I first showed you my swatches-map in...

In previous posts I talked about the challenge of the values in this difficult piece. In my last one I shared why capturing the...

Last Sunday I shared this as a “Happy Mother’s Day” greeting on social media. I thought you'd enjoy seeing the image on the full sheet of...