My Drawing of a Tree That’s…Well, a Tree

It’s a cool tree, I suppose. I was working with my Pentel Brush pen over some bluelines and exploring textures with bark, roots, leaves, and limbs. In many ways, this is a throwback to some of the children’s illustration I enjoyed in the late 70s when I was really starting to notice different artistic styles. There’s also a little bit of Walt Kelly‘s influence in there, which I’ll gladly admit.

My Drawing of a Hobo with a Keen Mustache

You might have shabby clothes, live in a junkyard, and eat hotdogs roasted over a drum of burning garbage, but there’s no reason your facial hair has to suffer for it.

This guy has his priorities.

My Drawing of a Blueline Hummingbird

I really like the look of blueline work — that is, the blue-pencil sketches that help an artist zero in on which lines to ink in a drawing. My own sketches have started celebrating and exploring this more…actually using the blue tone to give the inks some shading and tonality.

That’s the case with this little chap. He seems happy.

My Drawing of Why I Haven’t Blogged Lately

I’ve actually been drawing. A lot. More than usual.

But with prolific drawing comes a certain blogging inertia, such that my few days off in December turned into two months of nothing.

So, we’ll just say I’m backlogged. Or that I have a back log. As seen here.

Please laugh at my joke.

Thank you.

Process: My Drawing of a Mutated Soup Cat

Some time ago I offered to do some illustrations for friends, based on custom information they provided via an online survey. Now that it’s close to the end of the year, I’m actually getting around to drawing them.

In this case, some operative words were monster, cat, and soup. So I started blue-lining a rough idea involving a monster cat enjoying some soup.

 

Once I knew what I wanted to do, I started inking it, giving definition to the specific lines I liked and building up thicker areas for depth.

 

Another element of the process was  not crossing lines…I only used parallels and no crosshatching.

 

The final product turned out pretty well…I was happy with it, and liked that it retained the sketchiness of the original blues.

Also, that cat dude is crazy. I like it when a character kind of surprisingly presents himself.

My Drawing of a Breakfast Pal

While having breakfast with the Boy and some friends the other day, I sketched this fellow on the placemat with the crayons provided. The syrup caddy at the diner seemed to have quite a personality.

Not sure if anyone else heard him talk, though.

My Drawing of Some Serious Bidness

My agency put together this eBook with some great insights into marketing strategies. I was able to provide a number of illustrations for it, including the cover, which was total fun.

It’s always great to mix your passion with your day job…I’m feeling very fortunate this week.

The book is free…you can download it here.