A Drawing A Week Lens

The plan is to post at least one drawing per week and hopefully more. When we hit 52 drawings we'll start a new lens here on Squidoo. We'll start with this one which is a pen and ink drawing done with a micron Brush pen that is a very fine pointed brush that has archival ink and dries to a waterproof state. this is a sketch that I did today of an artist friend Richard LaForti, and it's my first attempt at using this tool.

I know - it's supposed to be "A Drawing A Week" but I wanted to make up for starting late in January (2/3s over), so I posted this one and there'll be two more this month.


It's pretty cold out here in Northern California and the trees are bare. I like looking at the structure of trees and we have lots of gnarly oaks around here. This one is in our front yard and I drew it from the comfort of my workroom/office. Hope you like it. I used the same Micron brush pen that I used on my friend Richard, but this time I drew on handmade paper from India. It has an interesting heavy texture to it.

I did this one with one of those graphite stick pencils that are all lead. Then I put an accent of black ink around the left eye. The drawing just sort of happened. My wife thinks it's creepy, but it has some interesting sinuous things happening that appeal to me.

Hey we did January, as promised. I did this drawing looking over the fence of our side yard. We have two vacant lots that have a lot of oaks in them. Trees always fascinate me and I never seem to get tired of drawing them. The hardest part is establishing the branches that are closest to you and trying to get the foreshortening right.

I went out to a coffee house concert and forgot my sketchbook. I had my Micron pen/brush with me so I reached for some napkins and did some quick sketches of the band that was playing. It was kind of dark in the room but I ended up with about 10 sketches before we left. A nice evening.

This is a digital drawing that I did using Corel Painter IX. I used the pencil tool and then came back with white chalk for hi-lights. I have always liked this method of starting with a grey background; adding darks; and then light accents. It gives depth to the drawing.

Here is a drawing that I did last week to auction off with a bottle of 1979 Charbon from The Coppola Vineyards. It is of, of course, Francis Ford Coppola, film director and vineyard keeper. I did it with brush and ink. It was fun to do because I worked for Francis for a year on "One From The Heart" at his Zoetrope Studios in Hollywood.

I was lucky enough to be hired to paint a life sized portrait of Whitney for a film called "Body Guard". I didn't get to meet her personally but was given some nice photos to work from. I painted her in oils on canvas and delivered the portrait to a Beverly Hills mansion where they filmed this part of the film.

This is the pencil study that I made to familiarize myself with Whitney Houston's face for the "Body Guard" portrait in the previous post. The origninal drawing is at the California Watercolor Gallery in Fallbrook, CA. They also have giclees available of the drawing. If you click on Whitney you'll be magically taken there. :)

I had to throw in a painting this time, but it's more of a sketch or study than a finished work. It's of a friend named Sharon and she has a very animated face, which I tried to catch using acrylic paints. It is 8 x 10 inches and painted on canvas covered masonite.

Here is a surreal critter drawing that I did for my sister-in-law. It's drawn with a micron 005 waterproof ink pen and then colored with acrylic wash.

I did this drawing of Marlon in his best known role as Don Corleone in Francis Coppola's "Godfather" film. It was done with brush and ink.

Found this one of my many sketchbooks and it was a drawing of a man's face done with dots of ink. It's an interesting way of working and it's fun to watch the shapes evolve as you continue to make more dots.