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Showing posts with label Pencil Sketching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pencil Sketching. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Zhang Hong Nian

February 05, 2014 0
I drew this portrait of my friend Zhang Hong Nian at his home in Woodstock, New York.


Hong Nian grew up in China, studying academic realism at the Central Art Academy in Beijing. After the Cultural Revolution, he was sent for four years to a forced labor camp, where he was not allowed to create art. In the 1980s he came to the United States to study Western painting and to exhibit his work. Today he is one of the most celebrated Chinese-American painters and teachers, and is married to portrait artist Lois Woolley.
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Zhang Hong Nian's website
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Monday, December 9, 2013

Jeffrey Kahane, pianist and conductor

December 09, 2013 0

Pianist Jeffrey Kahane led the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra in Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto yesterday.


I sat in the second row with my watercolor pencils at the ready. Because I was so close to the stage, there were no other audience members around me, and there was enough spillover stage light to see my sketchbook.

I sharpened up three water-soluble colored pencils: ochre, brown (really red-brown), and black, and also had the black and clear water brushes ready. The decision what to hold in your off-hand is crucial, because you can't fish around once the music starts.

Jeffrey Kahane, pianist and conductor

Mr. Kahane was in constant motion, acting both as soloist and conductor, directing the orchestra from the keyboard.

I watched him without drawing for the first five minutes to look for characteristic poses. In keeping with Beethoven, his poses went from fiery to lyrical to explosive to vulnerable. The most typical pose was with the head thrown back and the left hand up.

Once I decided on that pose, I had to commit to it entirely, even though I would only see it again in glimpses.


I don't usually touch up sketches at home, but I was dying to use a few dabs of white gouache to define the front planes of his face, plus a few white scratches with a knife to suggest the hair over the collar. This detail is the size of a postage stamp or an SD card.

Media: Caran D'Ache watercolor pencils, Moleskine Watercolor Notebook, Niji water brush filled with fountain pen ink. Lettering with Waterman fountain pen.

More about the performance last night and the Bard Conservatory.
Wikipedia on Jeffrey Kahane. Watch him play a little Mozart in this video clip.
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Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Quick-Sketch Portrait Tools

October 30, 2013 0

This set of water-soluble colored pencils and water brushes is all you need for sketching people in the wild.

You can order Caran d'Ache Supracolor 11 pencils individually at Dick Blick. The colors shown here are:
035 Ochre 
037 Brown Ochre 
045 Vandycke Brown
063 English Red
159 Brown
009 Black
407 Sepia
155 Blue Jeans

The four waterbrushes are medium or large size rounds, made by Niji, which you can get from Amazon

They're filled with 1. Water, 2. Higgins Eternal Ink, 3. Higgins Sepia Ink , and 4. Sheaffer Skrip blue ink
These inks are non-waterproof, which allows them to be dissolved after they are dry, and they protect the life and flow of your waterbrush.

It also helps to have a kneaded eraser and a pencil sharpener that will catch the shavings. The sketchbook should be something that can take water media, such as a Moleskine watercolor journal
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Saturday, October 12, 2013

Gus White's Puppets

October 12, 2013 0

Gus White was a traveling puppet maker, ventriloquist, and portrait painter who brought a Punch and Judy show to small town America. 

Yesterday, using watercolor and colored pencils. I sketched some of Gus White's one-of-a-kind hand puppets. White carved the heads from wood, painted them, and applied real hair or wool.  


White based his show on the traditional European Punch and Judy, but he put an American gloss on it. His version included cartoon icons of the day, such as Happy Hooligan, along with various ethnic stereotype characters, such as the Irish washerwoman, the Jewish peddler, the proper Englishman, the Indian, and various African-American types, all very typical for one hundred years ago.

In this vintage photo, Gus White is surrounded by his cast of characters. The Irish washerwoman is visible third from the left in the bottom row, and the Jewish peddler is visible (with a fuller beard) in the clump of characters on the right side.

You can read more about the story of Gus White and his puppets here.
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Sunday, September 22, 2013

Sketches from Old Sturbridge Village

September 22, 2013 0
Here are some pencil sketches that I did in 1987 at Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, where they recreate the life of an American small town in the early 19th century.

Damon Cook, cooper

Notching an oak beam before hewing.

Hewing with a broadaxe

Some tools of the trade, all made on-site

John Eaton, tinner, making a betty lamp.


Old Sturbridge Village website
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Monday, September 2, 2013

Brand Name Pencils

September 02, 2013 0
Bob Truby loves pencils so much that he has made a comprehensive website called Brand Name Pencils, where you can search all the known brands or types, including the El Dorado, which I mentioned on a previous post.  

He's got a Most Wanted page of rare pencils that he's looking for and willing to buy from you. Maybe there's gold in the back of your art supply drawer. 
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Thanks, Paulo
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Thursday, August 22, 2013

Sketching Birds and Dinosaurs

August 22, 2013 0
At the county fair I had some wonderful encounters with avian dinosaurs. (Link to YouTube Video)
Here's the drawing that you saw me make in the video. By the standards of most animal drawing, I was pretty lucky to have the turkey pose that long.

I was impressed with how sweet tempered and curious this bird was. She was really interested in my brush pens.
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Live Stream: This Saturday at 7 Eastern in New York City at Concert Window Open.
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New Video: "How I Paint Dinosaurs"
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Art Supplies:
1/4 inch flat brush 
Moleskine watercolor notebook
Caran D'Ache watercolor pencils
Waterman Phileas red fountain pen 
Camera: GoPro HD Hero at 2 second intervals
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Sunday, July 14, 2013

Titles on sketchbook covers

July 14, 2013 0
Blog reader Juergen van Straelen asked: "I noticed the nice cover decorations of your sketchbooks and I was wondering which paint you use for this. Do you fix the paint to make it more resistant?"


Thanks for asking, Juergen. First off, as a calligrapher and sign painter since I was in high school, I love to paint a title on each sketchbook. While I'm using the book, it helps me find the front, and it helps me remember what's in a book after it's finished. I usually title the book with whatever words I write on the first page.

I have tried a lot of paints and inks for the titles, such as gel pens,  enamel markers  and acrylic paint,  with varying levels of success. Acrylic doesn't stick well to the watercolor sketchbook covers, which seem to be made of some kind of fake leather. Gel pens are OK on paper, but they skip a lot on the covers.  Enamel markers work OK; they're opaque and wear well, but I find they clog up eventually.

What I have found works best is One-Shot sign painters' paint.  This is a very opaque enamel that holds up to incredible abuse. You only need about four colors for all your titles. I use yellow, red, light blue, and white.

If you do hand-lettered titles on your sketchbooks, please email me a photo. I'll choose a few of my favorites to feature on a future blog post.
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Links for: Enamel markers
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Saturday, July 13, 2013

Pencil and watercolor wash

July 13, 2013 0

Here's a drawing I did of dappled summer light on a farmhouse, done in graphite pencil and gray watercolor wash. 

This is a very traditional way to sketch, a tried and true technique. And it's a technique that I would recommend for beginners who want to ease into water media, or anyone who doesn't want to carry a lot of stuff. All you need is a little jar of water, a rag or paper towel, a paintbrush, and a couple of graphite pencils, maybe an HB and a 2B, and an eraser. 

There are many ways to approach pencil and wash, but I like to use the wash for tones up to about a 40% gray where I need flatness of tone, such as a sky or the shadow side of a building. The parts of the building that you leave white really pop this way. 

With the regular graphite pencils, you should be able to add the washes over the pencil without disturbing it, so you can do the pencil drawing first. But I tend to do a light but accurate layin and then add the washes, and when they're dry, I add the darker and softer pencil strokes.

Rendering of a proposed dining room by Otto Eggers from Guptill's book.
As for the surface, drawing (or cartridge) paper tends to buckle if you add anything more than a few light washes. If your washes are large or wet, you might want to use Bristol board or a watercolor sketchbook.
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The best book on pencil drawing is Drawing and Sketching in Pencil by Arthur Guptill. He also did a book called Color in Sketching and Renderingfrom 1935 which goes more into watercolor and wash.
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