Just a small middle-of-the-night drawing I did with my favorite Pilot fountain pen and new bottles of Waterman brown and black ink. I'm up a lot with an aggravated sciatic nerve these days, so why not draw?
Tag: Madison
Roy Chapman Andrews
This was a really fun cover to do. Richard Quinney wanted to publish a paperback version of a book we did for Borderland Books a few years ago. He also wanted to jazz up the look of this version and thought we could use an illustration Steve Chappell had created for the hard cover, but… Continue reading Roy Chapman Andrews
Cows: A Closer Look
Paul Thoresen takes beautiful pictures of cows near his home south of Madison. He had already created a book of his photos with text on Blurb, but when he decided to publish the book through Borderland Books, he asked me for design help. I took what he had created and added spacing, better fonts,… Continue reading Cows: A Closer Look
Self Portrait
Small 5 x 7 inch two-hour watercolor. First hour I drew from an Ipad photo in pencil. For some reason, it was very difficult to get the looking-up part of the expression. Second hour, I erased most of the pencil and put down a thin all-over wash mostly concerned with color temperature. Then more layers… Continue reading Self Portrait
Ox Herding in Wisconsin
This is the latest book from Borderland Books, written by Richard Quinney. The design is a collaboration between Richard’s ideas and my implementation of those ideas in a book layout. The entire book, including the cover, was printed digitally at Worzalla Printing in Stevens Point. The book was published as a paperback because at the… Continue reading Ox Herding in Wisconsin
Last Picture Last Year
Still unable to travel, I've been casting about for things to post. This was a half-hour sketch I did to try out my new Visual Journal notebook. Painted from a Web photo, probably on http://artists.pixelovely.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/, a great site for drawing practice. For those who are like me and troll the Web to figure how to… Continue reading Last Picture Last Year
Studies
Unable to travel to Chicago this week, I've been doing copies like the ones on the sketchbook page above. They're from Jan Kunz's “Painting Watercolor Portraits that Glow.” The Strathmore 5.5 x 8 Visual Journal with 90# watercolor paper is cheap and, while not the best paper, adequate for fooling around. Plus I thought I'd… Continue reading Studies
Plein Air Paintings
These are a few outdoor paintings I did at the end of May to get ready for a workshop I did with Joe Paquet in St. Paul the first week in June.
Behind the Orpheum
Another out door watercolor (from my car—temperature in the teens). I liked the way the buildings stacked up.
Corner Gas Station
Bad weather, so I had to cancel my usual Friday trip to the P&C. Following Mary Whyte’s advice that the best way to learn to paint is to paint plein air, I went out and painted an old gas station on a gray day instead.
Ken Crocker Artist 