d r a g o n b o n e s    

Another character from My Name is Earl – the ever lovable Randy, played by Ethan Suplee.

I dropped back to the 5 minute limit for this one, but while I made his face too round (see the reference photo here) I did find some features that I felt helped to improve the likeness factor – namely the ‘eyebrow dents’ and the mouth gesture.

Suplee does a great job making the character just plain lost, and I was pleased that the portrait seemed to capture that.

Another of the characters on the show is the lovely Catalina played by Nadine Valazquez.

Alright – I’m just going to say it. I don’t like to get all ‘fanboi’ in general, but I think Miss Valazquez is just downright stunning. Problem is that this makes it all the more frustrating when I don’t feel like I got her portrait to look like her.

Yes, I had some technical difficulties with my tablet when I was trying to draw her.

No, that’s not a euphemism.

But really? Wish I’d gotten this one to look a bit more like the reference photo. Maybe I’ll try again down the road.

The Lady and the Sea…

A while back, a friend of mine told me that a band she was helping to promote was getting a lot of search engine leads for “Retro Sailor Girl”. This led to a discussion on my style and how she thought I should make a stab at that very subject.

So today, a mere… year or three  after that discussion, I started sketching some rough ideas for the idea.

I also have a bit of a thing for the art nouveau movement and thought to myself “Why not add that to the mix?” which is why you may have noticed some nouveau elements to the sketch work on the left. I like the concept, and if time allows, I may just go ahead and create a poster once the image is complete.

I definitely need some better reference materials though. Doing this completely from my imagination is leaving quite a bit to be desired. I’m ok with that so far because I was just trying to get the rough idea down. Here I come, Google Images…

…and a Little Jason Lee

As part of my warm up process, I was doing some more fast portraiture. I feel like I’m making significant progress here, but I’m still a long way from where I want to be.

My buddy Mark and I talked about efficiency of line and that age old advice that every art instructor has tried to beat into my head: stop drawing sketchy lines – have some confidence, lay the line down, and move on.

You may have noticed – I just don’t do that. Confidence really is the key, and that will come with practice.

I took a luxurious (compared to my 3 and 5 minute portraits) 10 minutes to draw this one. I’ve been enjoying the hell out of My Name is Earl on Netflix, so I elected to use promo photos from the show for the portrait. The likeness seems solid, but it’s definitely still too sketchy.

Going to do some more of the My Name is Earl crew, so stay tuned…

It’s interesting to see that there’s a real difference in quality between the first of the five minute portraits that I do and the the last. The previous portrait was the last of those that I drew that day, and (if memory serves) this was the first. Shaq seems a lot more accurate and recognizable than this one.

Know who today’s portrait is?

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In my quest to be a better portrait artist, I’ve been doing some 3 minute portraits. I’ve posted a few, and I plan to continue this little exercise as time goes by.

As with the previous posts about 3 minute portraits the idea is to try to capture the person’s likeness in just 3 minutes. Not an easy task by a long shot, but here’s my latest attempt.

For the reference photos I used, click here.

This session was done with pen and ink rather than my usual – Open Canvas. I do really enjoy drawing with ball point pen on printer paper held on a clipboard. I started doing that many years ago when I worked in a manufacturing plant. I’d keep the clipboard with me and draw on my breaks. I still really enjoy some of the images I did all those years ago – there’s just so much energy to that particular kind of sketch work.

Every now and again, I find myself with some free time.

No really. It’s rare, but it does happen.

When that happens, I like to offer up the opportunity for folks to pay what they want for commissions.

You did, in fact, read that correctly. Pay what you want. If that’s $1, then it’s $1. If that’s $5,000,000? Well, I’ll try really hard to make the art live up to the commission price.

How It Works

1. Confirm that my Commission status (on the right) is set to OPEN.
2. Confirm that the Pay What You Want option (PWYW) is also set to OPEN. (Please note: if this option is NOT set to open when you request the work, I reserve the right to refund your money. This likely means that time is tight, but not tight enough to close commissions completely.)
3. Use the Donate via Paypal button in the upper right corner of this page to send me your commission fee.
4. Contact me via my contact form. Let me know the following information via the form:
1. What you’re commissioning me to draw. Be as descriptive as possible! The more information you give me, the closer I can come to drawing what’s in your head.
2. How much you sent me for the commission, and what email address you sent it from. This is to help avoid any criss crossing for multiple commissions or commissioners.
5. I will email you to confirm that I have received both the information and the commission money. I will likely have a sketch attached to this email. If I plan on doing more work/revisions, I’ll ask you to confirm that I’m headed in the right direction based on the sketch. If I feel that the sketch is complete, I’ll let you know in this email.
6. I welcome your thoughts/comments/critiques.

Please Note: I reserve the right to do as much or as little as I feel is warranted by your commission fee. If you feel that my work is only worth $1 (or if that’s all you can spare) then you’re not likely to get an illustration that took me 15 hours to complete. I will, however, likely give you more than your money’s worth in general – I do have a reputation to uphold.