Norton Children's Hospital - pen and ink

  Pen and ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches

Pen and Ink House Portrait in Old Louisville

8 x 10 inches.  This was a combination of Pigma Micron pens and sumi ink with a dip pen.

Oil landscape details

"Early Spring, Floyds Fork at Seatonville Road" oil on panel

16 x 20 inches, finished today after starting it on site last week.  As I stated in a previous post, this was a fairly limited palette. I wish my camera picked up more of the subtlety in the tones in the paint. I am pretty happy with it.  I ended up putting a bit more foliage on the trees than there was in real life, and the scene was actually less colorful than I depicted it, with the exception of the grass on the banks, which was a pretty intense green--something I could not generate with a mix of Naples yellow and ultramarine blue.

Floyds Fork at Seatonville Road

Goose Creek in Walnut Ink

A few Fridays ago, it was unseasonably warm, but the bugs and poison ivy weren't out yet.  I sat out and sketched by Goose creek, in the woods near my daughter's school, for an hour or two.  This was the result.  This was done mostly with a bamboo pen; some of it is my homemade soda can pen; and after I got home I worked in more details with a Hunt 101 nib.

detail:

knife painting - Germantown shotgun houses

This is an oil painting I started about five years ago, and only had it at the underpainting stage before I put it on a shelf in the garage and forgot about it.  I didn't much like how it was coming along.  Finally, a few weeks ago, I pulled it out and used a painting knife to complete it.  It's one of my only knife paintings, and I like the result.  It was, for me, pretty experimental, since I don't have much experience with painting knives.  It was certainly different than the detailed pen and ink work I usually work on, and I want to do more soon.

White Barn Near Crestwood: black walnut ink drawing

I frequent a pen-and-ink discussion forum, and a talented artist there has been posting a series of drawings of barns that he has been doing.  They have been great to look at, and they helped push me to draw one myself.  I suppose I was already inclined, despite the long-ago warnings of one of my college professors (he had a list of things he advised us not to paint, because they were cliches: barns, ducks on ponds, sunsets, religious themes...there were probably more, but I forget what they were.)  My favorite buildings to draw are the ones that have a lot of "character"-- texture and wear.  So barns are attractive for that reason.

The subject was on my mind, and as a ran an errand through Crestwood a few weeks ago, I saw this barn.  I stopped and took some reference photos, and then did this drawing.  It's about 10 x 14 inches.

White Barn Near Crestwood

Details:

Falls of the Ohio Pen and Ink Detail

black walnut ink on paper

 This is another closeup of a pen and ink drawing. This section is about 4 x 4 inches. I really like the closeups because I like seeing the pen strokes and the patterns in the lines. That border between the representation of the scene, and the abstraction of the marks on paper, is what I find most exciting about any art medium.

Floyds Fork Landscape oil painting

This is a commissioned oil painting on panel.  The subject of the commission was actually the bench, which is dedicated to my client's parents.  She wanted to give them a drawing or painting of the bench as a Christmas gift because they are unable to get out to the area much any more.

I initially thought to work on a pen and ink drawing, but it seemed like it would be such a waste of the fall colors that were showing at the time.  A great reason to do an oil painting!

I actually added a little more to this after this photo was taken: a small amount of blue-green glazing to darken the distant foliage behind the trunks on the right edge of the painting. I also used it to add some slight shading and definition to the trunks and a few other areas.

I am pretty pleased with the result.  I'll take another photo of the real-real finished product and a few closeups to post later.

Louisville Skyline in Pen and Ink

This is a drawing I completed a while back (last summer, I think), but I set it aside to consider later, and then forgot about it.  I found it again recently, and decided I really liked it. The size is 10 x 14 inches.

I was interested in drawing the Louisville skyline, but it's a bit of a cliched subject around here.  So, I considered avenues to make it a somewhat fresher take on the scene.  I decided to make it an evening scene, with a large expanse of sky above it, and the moon.  I am pleased with the result.

Louisville Skyline, pen and ink, 10 x 14 inches

details:

House portrait in pen & ink with watercolor

This one is about 10 x 10 inches

detail:

Pen & ink, 7 x 10 inches

This is 7 x 10 inches.  I did most of it with sumi ink, using a metal nib dip pen for details, and a homemade bamboo pen to draw in the tree foliage.  I used a brush and ink wash to fill in the lower windows, then went back over them with the dip pen.  I think the dip pen was a Hunt 101 but I can’t ever remember which ones I use. 

Well, after that, I wasn’t quite satisfied with the value and definition in some areas, so I used disposable technical pens on some areas, especially the black doors and trim at the bottom, and the windows above.  I also added more darkness and detail to the tree foliage, and darkened the sky above the building.

I really like how dip pens look, but working back over areas can be difficult; the already-inked areas tend to pull extra ink from the nib when I go back into it, even after it has had time to dry.  That was my main reason for switching.

I’m pretty pleased with it overall.

detail:

New Art of the Loom at The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to drive on a field trip to the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft.  The 2nd and 3rd graders were there to see a weaving exhibit: "The New Art of the Loom."

I expected to enjoy the show, but I more than enjoyed it: I was very impressed.  The first floor was regional weaving artists, and the second floor showed international works of the loom, and all of them were beautiful.  Some were intriguing and abstract, some were strikingly representational; some were brilliant and shimmering, some were hauntingly toned-down.  All of them were fun to look at.

Unfortunately, the show ends this Saturday, but we are going to try to get down there as a family before it closes for a final visit.

Pen and ink house portrait, black and white, 6 x 9 inches

I finished this drawing a couple of weeks ago, and just forgot to post about it.  This was a very nice house to draw; it has so many qualities that lend itself to a nice black and white drawing, such as contrasts in the trim, nice proportions, surrounding foliage, and a hedge-lined brick sidewalk receding dramatically to the front door.

"Horse & Jockey 3" pen and ink

I put some finishing touches on it yesterday, and I think it's all done now.  This is on 11 x 14" cold press watercolor paper.

For some reason, my favorite parts of drawings like this are the large shaded areas (in this particular drawing, it's the horse's coat I like best.  Just one big area of cross-hatching. I love it. Why? I don't know. Probably the same reason I enjoy the flat drive through southwest Indiana or all 14 minutes of Nick Cave's "Babe I'm on Fire.")

If you think the man in front looks sort of like me, that's because it is.  In my original reference photo, I didn't like the man's pose, so I posed myself in my living room and had my daughter stand on the couch (so she'd be at eye level) and take some photos of me to use as reference.

Next up: two more house portrait commissions.

Bed and Breakfast - black and white drawing

 Here is the small house portrait I completed last week. It's 6 x 9 inches.  It's a bed and breakfast, and the business owner wanted a horse featured, since the area used to be a horse farm (and home to a Kentucky Derby winner.)

Marina on the Ohio River - pen & ink

 

Here is the last of the house drawings I've been working on for the same customer (the first they got through a charity auction bid, and after that they asked me for three more.)  I had to get the last three done by Thanksgiving, and I made it just under the wire.  This was finished last Friday night, and I delivered them yesterday.

They wanted the marina side of the house drawn, which presented a bit of a challenge: How do I make it a house drawing, but still do justice to the great view of all the boats?  Well, I had already done the front side of the house in an earlier drawing (the back of the house is towards the marina.)  I felt that freed me up a little to make the boats more dominant, but I still wanted the house clearly visible and to stand out a bit, even if it was in more of a backing role.

I find that each drawing presents its own set of challenges and tough decisions. There were plenty in this one, but the two that seemed to stand out the most to me were how to handle the water (consistent, flat pen strokes to emphasize the plane, or more varied strokes to give more of a sense of "shimmer" and shifting light? And, how do I shade the large white areas of the boats?

This drawing is 11 x 15 inches, drawn with .05 and .1 Sakura Pigma Microns, a .1 Staedtler Pigmentliner, and a .03 Copic Multiliner.

This might also be the first pen and ink drawing in which I used a straight edge for a notable portion of the inking. I used one to get straight lines on the rigging.

In the Paddock - pen & ink

 

I finished this pen and ink drawing a few weeks ago, but refrained from posting photos until I had delivered it to its recipients, which I finally did last night.  This is 10 x 15 inches.

Falls of the Ohio, beginning and end.

I finished this black walnut ink drawing earlier in the year, but was looking at my sketchbook the other day and I thought it would be fun to post the earliest draft of the drawing alongside the finished product.

The ink drawing is the completed work, about 11 x 14 inches.  The sketch done in pencil is the first thumbnail sketch I did.  It’s about two inches wide.