Marvin Gaye

Here's another beginning of a new painting. I'm trying to get a bunch going at once and get this new portfolio finished with the quickness!

Ray Charles Colored In

Before jumping into real paint on this one I thought I would try pushing some gradients around in photoshop. Photoshop is great for quick color experiments that look cool without much time invested.

Drawings from the past few days

I've been drawing a lot these days and I managed to fill up two sketchbooks within a month yesterday.

These first two drawings are the beginnings of a couple of finals for my new series on famous African American musicians.















I snuck this one in while I was at the beach.

last page of one of my sketchbooks.

Famous African American Musicians

Here are some new studies for a series of paintings on famous African American Musicians.

Contours!

Hey there!

Here is a batch of some new line drawings made within the last couple days.

Hope you like!
-r

A Ton of Drawings

Here is a mixed batch of recent drawings. There are some studies of an illustration I'm working on of Pete Townshend. I've been really getting into The Who's Live at Leeds album lately. There is so much damn energy and creativity in there which oozes inspiration for me.

I'm trying to find my "line" still. Of course I'll never stop searching and experimenting with my work but it sure has been fun pursuing lately. This is it so far. I promise I'll be back with some color work soon.

More Quickies

Here are some more quick sketches I've finished during the past few days. Hope you like em!

Quickies

I've been keeping a small sketchbook during down time at my day job. Here are some of the studies I've done in the last week or so. Hope you dig em!

WWII Studies

I was reading a post by Lisa Lamhuton Adam Volker's blog about how George Pratt would research everything from costume design to visiting the Delta to a soldier's memoirs. When I see Pratt's work I am instantly aware of how passionate he is about what he chooses to draw and paint. This thought process in the ideation phase is what makes his work stand out from the rest. He is able to put himself in someone else's shoes and try to understand what they may have felt. There is a tremendous amount of conviction there that I greatly admire. This sounds like it is common knowledge I know but you'd be surprised that many people do not think about this stuff.

One of my favorite parts of starting a new project is researching the subject. First of all this is a requirement if you want to understand what it is that you're drawing. The true joy for me (and I'm sure many others) of studying costume design and mechanics from our history are the stories that go with them. I would have never thought of watching interviews with WWII veterans to get a better understanding of my current project if it wasn't for Pratt. I would have missed out on their stories for one and in turn would have created a mere shell of rendering of what I was illustrating.

Here are a few of the studies I can share at the moment.

A Couple of Quick Ones

fooling around with photoshop again.


'Kristina balancing her checkbook'

B.B. in Technicolor

some experiments with color in photoshop. there are sometimes too many options with digital painting. it's hard to be picky sometimes. these are the few that didn't get tossed from last night. i'm curious to see which one do everyone likes the best.

Jimi Hendrix in Purple

I figured that if I was going to do a Hendrix portrait I would have to color it purple. It just seemed sacrilege if I were to use something like yellow.

B.B. King

I picked up a great guitar magazine called Blues Legends last week. It ran the gamut from Robert Johnson to all the Kings of course. Here is a sketch I made from one of the photos in the mag.

'King of the Blues'