Cactus_01

I had to take the day off from work today to do a whole bunch of random stuff, but I managed to steal two hours in the middle of the day - woo hoo! I really hope I can find more time for drawings like this - it's very relaxing.

Color

I got help filling up this small post.

Horses, etc.

I learned to appreciate artists who can really draw horses when I worked with my friend Gerald Forton - I met him on a job and watched as he drew perfect horses in action straight in ink, no under drawing! (Here is a pic of him in his studio). It was humbling then, and still is as I try to steal an hour most nights to finally learn this stuff.

This diagrammatic drawing is boring and painful, but I included it for the students out there (isn't that all of us? You can't avoid this stuff). I didn't get a good art education, so copying (and drawing from life) has been critical to me.
I can't actually draw a horse this well. These are all copied from the great drawings in three excellent books on animal drawing: The Art of Animal drawing, by Ken Hultgren, How To Draw Animals, by Jack Hamm, and How To draw Animals, by the Famous Artists School. One of these days I hope to find some time to draw at the local horse stables...

The FAC book has some drawings by the great Harold Von Schmidt, who has somehow ended up mostly forgotten compared with Cornwell, Loomis, etc. He was a mighty talent.
Jack Hamm just couldn't draw as well as those fine illustrators, but he had a talent for teaching, and he managed to publish a few thin books that cover territory almost no one else did at the time.
Ken Hultgren worked at Disney, and could really draw animals!

I switched from Prisma pencil to charcoal - not digging the results.

This page was a lousy likeness of the model, so I tried to use the rest of the paper.

Another bad likeness of a different model - I'm seeing a pattern here...

This one actually kind of looks like the model! Not gonna mess up the page with a bunch of horse butts!

Voting

Watching the election results last night was an AMAZING experience! I'd planned on doing more voting sketches, but the line was not that long.


It was my patriotic duty to draw exactly what I saw as I waited in line to vote.


This fish has nothing to do with the election.