Still Life Painting

I haven't posted anything to this blog in a while but I need to get back into the swing of things. Every once in a while I go through dry spells but I always come back. I bought some oil paints a while ago and I've done one painting so far. But I am starting a new still life painting today. The still life scene is a wine bottle, wine glass, and autumn leaf on a napkin. Everything is on a wood table.

Here is a picture of me drawing the outline on my canvas. I have the still life scene set up on my drawing table. And yes, that is a t-shirt stapled to the wall as a backdrop. I couldn't find a black sheet.



This is another picture of the still life scene and my finished outline.

Commissioned Car Drawing> 84 Trans AM> Knight Rider

I've been waiting on this commission for a while. I knew the woman wanted it but she took her time getting the reference pictures to me. This is a drawing of her husband's 1984 Trans AM (which is the same car as was used in "Knight Rider" I found out). Most of the car drawings I've done so far have been from a group of men who race their cars at a local drag strip. It seems to be the domino effect in that, I do a car drawing and then someone sees it and wants one too. So that's been cool, I hope this one generates another car drawing.

The reference photos she provided me with were not the best in the world. I had to make certain areas of this drawing up from my head. I tried to make it look like the rear wheels were spinning in this drawing too, not sure if I succeeded in that but it was fun trying something new. Hope you guys like it.

9"x12" Fabriano Hotpress
3B, B, H pencils
blending stumps
12 hours
car drawing, 84 trans am

Car Drawing Commission- Update

I was back working on this car drawing tonight. It shouldn't be too much longer until it's completed now. Maybe tomorrow. :)

Car Drawing - 84 Trans AM

Car Drawing Commission - 84 Trans AM

This is what I am currently working on. I have been talking with a customer about doing a car drawing for her for a while but I've been waiting on her to send me some reference pictures. I finally picked up the reference pictures last weekend and started this on Monday. It's a car drawing of her husband's 84 Trans AM. It's the same car they used in Knight Rider, minus the machine gun terots, haha. This car was slightly modified though. The man races it at a local drag strip. My last couple car drawings have stemmed from eachother. I did the last one and then this customer saw it and wanted one. And hopefully someone will see this drawing when I'm done with it and want one :) Anyways, here's the drawing so far:

Car Drawing in progress

Finsiehd up, commissions, and new drawing project

I finished up the still life drawing of Jack Daniels that I am calling "Intoxicated". The drawing took me a very long time to do and I am relieved to have it done finally. For a while it seemed like I was never going to finish it. And then I kept getting commission inquiries so I thought that I was going to have to put it aside for a while to do one of those. "Intoxicated" took me about 60 hours total and it's on 14"x20" Fabriano Hotpress watercolor paper. I hope everyone enjoyed watching the process of it and I hope you like the finished work.


After "Intoxicated" was complete I had a commission to work on. The commissioned drawing was a 3 person portrait. The woman asked me to draw her 2 children and her sister's child. She wanted all of the portraits somehow connected so I did circle backgounds on each individual portrait and connected them that way. This drawing was good practice for me. I am not really used to drawing this small. Each of the portraits were about 4 inches tall. Usually I draw portraits alot bigger than this. The overall drawing is 11"x14". My customer wanted the drawing framed and matted so I framed it to 16"x20" and she wanted a slate blue matte. Overall I was happy with this work. My customer expressed an interest in having more portraits done in the future. It was shipped off to Surprise, Arizona, haha.


When that commission was complete, I started another commission. This time I was approached via my website about having a portrait done of Morrissey. I had no idea who Morrissey was so I looked him up online. Turns out he's the lead singer of "The Smiths". My customer asked for this work to be on 9.5"x12" paper. I was happy with the drawing when finished but in particular I was really happy with the hair. I think this was another small breakthrough I had in drawing hair. I wished I would have used this method when drawing my Armin Mersmann portrait a few months back but live and learn.


Now for my current project. I have had several more inquiries about commissions but nothing set in stone yet. So I started my own drawing until another commission. This time I am drawing a figure drawing of Next Door Nikki. Let me warn you that if you try to find out who she is on a search engine or something, you may be exposed to nude pictures. She is a softcore porn star. I am doing this figure drawing in pastels. This will be my first time using pastels. I ordered some Rembrandt soft pastels a while ago and have been itching to use them. So I finally am getting to try them out. So far I really enjoy working with them. They are such a forgiving medium. If you go too dark in a certain area, you can lighten by blending with some tissue. If you go too light in an area, just add more. Soft pastels are also erasable, so that's a plus. And they are blendable which makes me lean towards these rather than colored pencil. I think I will be using pastels alot in the future. Here's a picture of me working on the current drawing.

Intoxicated WIP - Lettering

I am still working on the broken bottle drawing. It's probably going to end up being one of my most ambitious undertakings to this point. I have tons and tons of hours into it and I know I have tons and tons of hours left on it. If I had to start over on this drawing, I think I would have done a background so that the highlights would shine more. With the highlights and the background both being white, they aren't as brilliant as they could be with a toned background. Anyways, I am still working on the lettering, which is going slow. Everything will be very detailed though so it will pay off in the end. Here's an updated picture of the drawing:

Pencil Drawing- Intoxicated WIP

I am still plugging away at this drawing. I knew it was going to be a big project when I started it. I estimated that it would probably take me about a month. Maybe a little more, who knows. Depends on how motivated I am to work on it at night. Tonight I worked a little more on the lettering. This part is a huge pain in the ass. Well, it's not that bad I suppose. It's just really really tedious. Not particularly difficult though. I have to draw around all the lettering with a 3B mechanical pencil and make sure everything is crisp and straight. Then I am going over the actual letters with a B pencil. Doing this will make the highlights in the drawing more spectacular. If I just left all the lettering white, the highlights would be less noticable and wouldn't be as important. But since I am drawing glass and it's reflective, I want the highlights to sparkle as best as they possibly can. I took a couple pictures of me working on the drawing tonight. The left one shows where I'm at with it and the right picture shows how close my face is to the drawing while I am working on the lettering. I have been setting very small goals for myself everytime I work on this drawing and doing the best I can on it.