Sketchbook
Welcome to my sketchbook! As a visual communicator, practically everything that I do begins with a sketch. This not only makes communication simpler, but more efficient as well. Starting with a sketch helps encourage creativity, allowing one to play with ideas before they can be articulated with words.
Lizzie - II
domenica, 8 febbraio 2026
After spending a bit of time creating characters, I decided to take another try at a portrait of my friend, Liz. This time, I was more careful to hold to the centerline of her face and “build out” her cheekbones a bit. I also discovered where I had gone awry in several of my previous portraits. Instead of paying attention to values, I had paid more attention to the colors of the photograph that I worked from as a reference. Once I began thinking in terms of values, I realized that I had made her eyes too light. So I darkened them up!
Characters - I
domenica, 8 febbraio 2026
After my forays into portraits, I decided to lighten things up by practicing some characters from Loomis’ work, Fun with a Pencil. I wanted to get back to a sense of playfulness and curiosity instead of focusing on specific angles and proportions. Of course, Loomis also uses a similar approach to characters as he does for portraits, so the practice is still bound to affect my other modes of expression.
Lizzie - I
venerdì, 6 febbraio 2026
I don’t know that I have ever practiced so many portraits in a single day as I have done today. After asking permission, I began to work on a sketch of my friend Liz, the same person who encouraged me to seriously take up art in the first place. Even though I was able to capture her likeness in a certain way, something still felt off — the same issue that I had with the portrait of Jodie.
JJ - IV
venerdì, 6 febbraio 2026
This is the fourth portrait that I have attempted of my friend, Jodie. I wanted to continue flowing with the texture of hair, and she has some amazing curls and twirls. As much as I tried, something still felt “off” when I finished this portrait, something that took me several days to discover, as I will share in another post.
Classical Portrait - II
venerdì, 6 febbraio 2026
In this piece, I continued to work with the shading and made a commitment to stay away from line except for defining around the eyes and lips. I began having a bit more fun with the hair and texture, which allowed me to loosen up this drawing more than others that I had created to this point in my studies.
Classical Portrait - I
venerdì, 6 febbraio 2026
After working on Samantha’s portrait, I decided to work more on the three-quarter profile view with the shading technique. At this point I was still more than a bit uncertain with relying upon shading, especially with my focus on using a pen to make marks, not to mention my love of line.
Form & Shading - III
giovedì, 5 febbraio 2026
After experimenting with the “Soft Approach” on sample sketches, I decided to attempt another portrait of my friend, Samantha. For some reason, perhaps because I am trying too hard, I found it more difficult to draw someone that I know than a model or copy from a book.
Form & Shading - II
giovedì, 5 febbraio 2026
After my first foray into building form, I decided to continue experimenting. This time I used the “Soft Approach” outlined in Loomis’ work, Creative Illustration. This approach makes sense to me, and allows me to add fine details at the very end, after I’ve completed the majority of shading.
Form & Shading - I
giovedì, 5 febbraio 2026
As much as I enjoy working with line and pen, lines simply don’t work out as well when trying to depict the human face. With this in mind, I finally decided to take yet another step into the unknown to work exclusively with shading to build form.
Pencil Portraits - I
mercoledì, 4 febbraio 2026
As you all know, I have been reading Loomis’ books on Illustration for the past several weeks. Today I decided to work on shading along with line, based upon Loomis’ statement “line defines, shading gives form”.
Portraits in Pencil - I
lunedì, 2 febbraio 2026
This morning, I continued working with portraits in pencil, mainly to practice proportions and positioning of the facial elements. I also paid more attention to shading, especially around the eyes and nose, to help define these features without relying upon the heaviness of lines.
Portraits, Proportions, & Pencil - I
domenica, 1 febbraio 2026
After working with the mockup of Razumov’s work, I realized that I needed to work on facial structures, proportioning, and neck alignment with my portraits. I began the day working with different facial angles in relation to the neck, and then progressed to several larger-format female faces.
Full Figure - w/ Initial Color
sabato, 31 gennaio 2026
Even though I am used to working with custom color as far as mixing goes, this is the first time that I have experimented with using another person’s palette - and it is much more challenging than I ever expected. I am part way through the painting at this point, and will be curious to see how things shift once I push the darks and shadows.
Full Figure from Painting - III
venerdì, 30 gennaio 2026
After working with the colored pencil, I decided to go back and do another rendition of Razumov’s work depicting a woman at a café. Thanks to all my pencil work, I noticed that I have an even lighter touch than before — allowing me to add in detail while letting the piece breathe.
Full Figure from Painting - II
mercoledì, 28 gennaio 2026
After working with the sketch from the previous evening, I decided to work with a full-color version of Razumov’s painting in colored pencil to work on my figure proportions, flow, and perspective. After a bit of sketching, I decided to add ink in as well.
Full Figure from Painting - I
martedì, 27 gennaio 2026
This is a light sketch that I made while talking on the phone to my artist friend, Lizzie. She made the suggestion that I look at and deconstruct artists that I find inspiring, so I pulled up a piece by Konstantin Razumov and began sketching.
Shading Figures - I
martedì, 27 gennaio 2026
In these sketches, I was working with exercises from Andrew Loomis’ work, “Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth”, namely experimenting with the different planes that the human body can be broken into to help with light, shading, and contouring.
Working with Shading
domenica, 25 gennaio 2026
In this exercise, based upon Loomis’ work, “Successful Drawing”, I decided to work primarily with shading and shadow, instead of relying upon line. The contours of the human face require a soft touch, otherwise people can end up looking much older than they actually are.
Female Proportions - I
domenica, 25 gennaio 2026
The female figure has different proportions than their male counterpart. Instead of breaking up the figure into eighths, I worked with a technique based upon dividing the figure into thirds and then sixths for proportioning and placing the hips.
The Female Figure
sabato, 24 gennaio 2026
After working with the male proportions initially, I found it incredibly challenging to shift gears and properly lay out female proportions. The large number of sketches represent my level of frustration with not quite being able to simply “shift gears” and embrace a new set of proportions.