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Yesterday I had the day off so I decided to but a larger pad of paper. I looked at the 18″ x 24″ paper and realized how big that actually is. It seemed huge! I also looked at 14″ x 17″ as a viable size to draw on. In the end I went with the 14″ x 17″. It didn’t seem to be so massive and the price was within my budget. After my whirlwind day of errands I sat down and began a new work on the 14″ x 17″ paper. So far so good. All I did was the rough sketch, minimal details and some basic shading.

The interesting thing about the 14″ x 17″ paper was that it didn’t feel that much bigger then the 11″ x 14″ that I had been working on. but when I stepped back a few feet the size difference really caught my attention. It will be a little more work to shade a larger area but all in all it’s a good size for what I’m doing on it.

My next purchase will need to be more pencils. I’m starting to wear them down. I also want to take a look at clutch pencils instead of traditional wood pencils. I don’t if they’re cheaper in the long run but the weight of the pencil will stay the same regardless of how much graphite is left in the pencil.

That’s all for now…

I just finished a new illustration the other night. With my busy work schedule I can only work on an illustration a few hours each day. This one took me roughly 18 hours to complete. What I tried to focus on for this one was the shading. I wanted to do more with the blending of shadow areas and get a better contrast between light and dark. I also wanted to use the shading to show definition of shape instead of using outlines. Again this illustration is based on a photo I shot with a wonderful model on 5/18/08. I used only pencils on 11″ x 14″ acid free paper. To see more of my photo work visit my photography site.

See more of my illustrations.

In a earlier post I mentioned I was dabbling in pencil drawing. Well after several test sketches and some interesting results… here is my first finished pencil drawing. It was done on 11″ x 14″ paper and I used pencils ranging from 4H to 4B. I don’t know if that means anything to you but I figured I’d mention it.

The drawing is taken from an artistic nude shoot I did last month. The image does contain nudity. If you are offended by nudity please close your eyes now! wink wink!

Enjoy!

I’ve always said that I can’t draw to save my life.  With that being said, I’ve always been fascinated by pencil sketches.  It all start with an ex-girlfriend about 15 years ago.  She took a photo of us and turned it into an amazing pencil drawing.  I still have it to this day and still enjoy it as a wonderful piece of art.

On one of my recent photo shoots, the model and I talked about pencil sketches from photos and I got interested in it.  So I decided I would try it.  Whether it was good or not, I would try it.  I knew it would be fun but it’s turning out better than I thought.  I’m using photos from my artistic shoots and turning them into sketches.  It’s neat because I can use photos that I wouldn’t be able to publish because the shadows fall in the wrong place or maybe there is a leaf that ended up in the shot.  I can pick and choose what details are in and which are out.

I’m finishing up one right now so when I’m done I’ll post in my gallery.

Over the weekend my car wouldn’t start.  Arrrrghhhhh!  On Saturday I was about ready to just give up.  The problems with my van coupled with rising gas prices and to top it off I’m still single!  I could certainly see why some people are driven to rob banks.

However, On Sunday I went out to scout locations for photography and I found a really great place on the windward side.  It was gorgeous.  The trail crossed a stream many many times and it was just heavenly.  It took me a while to find the trail since the parking are was not near the trailhead.  By the time I had gotten back to the car I borrowed for the day.  My troubles were gone and I was feeling really good.  On the way home on the freeway I saw a sign that someone had put up that simply read “You’re Beautiful”.

The moral of my story is life is tough and things happen.  But you can’t let it get you down.