Custom Pin-Up for Cindy

Some time ago I created a custom pin-up for a woman named Cindy. She wanted a pin-up drawing which would look like a classic pin-up art drawn by Alberto Vargas, but with her face and long blond hair. Cindy wants me to make a series of different pin-ups for her to use as unique and personalized graphic elements for her website created for those who love green living and home made products. This is a woman oriented website where Cindy discusses crafts, gardening, allotments, beauty products, fashion, recycling ideas and many other topics. You can visit her website at http://www.cindyfullerhome.com to see that various pin-up graphics are used throughout the site.

The first custom pin-up created for Cindy was inspired by one of Alberto Vargas' drawings which you can see here:

I did not copy the drawing though. I mean the face is not the only part which makes my pin-up drawing different from Vagras’ artwork. Alberto Vargas, by the way, being the master of pin-up, is very difficult to copy properly, if not impossible. Anyway, I feel better when I do not have to copy other artists’ works having more freedom to bring in at least something which belongs to me. The best thing is that client did not mind these deviations as she loved the result.

Custom Pin-Up Inspired by Alberto Vargas

Personalized pin-up for Cindy

Watch this video on Youtube

Click here to see all my custom pin-ups on this blog
All my pin-up videos

Related posts:
Custom Pin-Up for an Australian Woman
Custom Pin-Up for Susie
Personalized pin-up art with a car
Custom Pin-Up Poster (1950s Style)
Personalized Pin-Up Commission
Custom Pin-Up Gift for Christina

Read more...

Edward John Smith (Titanic Captain)

I know that name Edward John Smith does not ring a bell for a lot of people. But if you go to Wikipedia and read this man’s bio you understand that a lot of people know him even without remembering his name. Yes, Edward John Smith was the captain of Titanic and died together with this famous ship when RMS Titanic sank in 1912.

Yes Edward John Smith was captain of RMS Titanic and the ship sank. But should we blame or hate Captain Smith for this disaster? Well, everyone has own answer to this question. But it is important to know how uneasy it was to command a ship like Titanic at that time to fully comprehend the situation and possible reasons of the disaster. RMS Titanic was one of the first Olympic-class passenger liners (extremely large ships) and the largest passenger steamship in the world. Therefore she was a unique ship and Edward J. Smith was one of the first captains to command such vessels. Although the ship was designed by the best engineers and equipped with the most advanced technologies available at the time, it was extremely difficult to navigate a huge ship during a long transatlantic voyage without today’s usual satellite navigation systems, advanced weather forecasting and high quality wireless communication systems. Such ship could be entrusted only to the most experienced and skillful captain. Now, imagine how it was to command a ship of a new class, which size could be compared to a small town, with equipment of early 1900s while managing the crew of 860 people and being often involved in small talks and dinners by first class passages of high standing to whom you cannot refuse. I do not believe that any normal person can foresee everything that could happen with the ship in the ocean. In fact, anything could have happened, and even now people who investigate the disaster argue about the real reason of Titanic sinking and failure to avoid the collision with an iceberg (or pack ice according to some alternative theories). I do not believe though that Captain Smith is directly guilty of the disaster as there were too many factors and risks which could be out of his control. Captain Smith was one of the pioneer captains who commanded the world’s biggest passenger liners and the saddest thing about pioneers is that they often get it wrong with new experience as they set their fist steps on an unknown ground without being aware of when and where the ground may fail. They reveal their mistakes for the future generations to learn from. The next Olympic-class liner Britannic built after the loss of Titanic had undergone some important design changes based on the Titanic disaster investigation. It is really sad that innovations making our lives safer cost us thousands of other people’s lives… We are all in God's hands and we must remember that we are all weak people who can control almost nothing in our lives and we can only rely on God’s mercy no matter how big and safe things we try to build.

I’ve recently searched for Edward John Smith in Google to find out that there are only a few photographs of the Titanic cap and all of these pictures are of poor quality. Therefore I could not help drawing a portrait of this brave and experienced captain paying him a tribute which he deserves. I have also made a video showing the drawing progress. I included a wonderful piece of music by Gavin Bryars called “The Sinking of the Titanic” to the video to make it as emotional as possible. I hope you are going to like the video and the portrait.

Portrait of Edward John Smith

Edward John Smith

Watch this video on Youtube

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Christmas Gift Portrait for Taya

I have recently created a Christmas gift portrait for Taya Lear. She is a singer in the United States. This is not for the first time that Taya orders a portrait from me.

The portrait was drawn with a graphite pencil. I want to show you the final result and the progress video. By the way I used music by Taya Lear on the background of the video.

Portrait for Taya

Taya and Kevin

Watch this video on Youtube

Last Christmas I made the portrait of her husband’s dog. So I hope she will get back to me by the next Christmas.

Related posts:
Portrait of Emma
Drawing a family portrait
Cylia

Read more...

Drawing for the US Catfish Association

My recent post about hunting and fishing drawings has not passed unnoticed as shortly after I had made this post I was contacted by a guy named Paul who belonged to the Brotherhood of Catfishermen. He wanted me to create a custom drawing of catfish for the United States Catfish Association (USCA). The drawing would be used on t-shirts that would be screen printed. It was supposed to be a life-like catfish scene artwork showcasing three species of North American catfish: a blue catfish, a channel catfish and a flathead catfish.

Catfish drawing was created for the United States Catfish Association (their logo is above)

Below I want to show you the final result and the drawing progress video. By the way, the drawing was made with Pentel brush pen.

Catfish drawing

American catfish: blue catfish, channel catfish and flathead catfish

Catfish t-shirt design for USCA

Watch this video on Youtube

USCA is planning to come out with the new catfish t-shirt on January 1, 2011. I wish them good luck and tight lines!

This is how the first catfish t-shirt with my drawing looks like

Related posts:
Hunting and fishing drawings
American wildlife illustrations

Read more...

Custom Pin-Up Gift for Christina

As I said in my last blog post I had been commissioned to make three custom pin-up drawings. Today I am writing about the second pin-up poster created for Christina. This pin-up was ordered by Christina's husband as a personalized Christmas gift. According to her husband's words Christina "is a fan of the pinup style and would love a custom gift like this".

The man wanted to preserve some peculiarities of his beloved wife's figure in the final drawing. He also showed me a few classic pin-up drawings and photographs which postures could be used for my poster and he wanted me to draw the pin-up with the specific hairstyle:

This hairstyle was chosen for the custom pin-up poster

This classic pin-up photograph was used as a reference for the posture 

So I did my best to create a unique custom gift in accordance with my client's wishes and requirements. Here is the final pin-up poster and the video:

Personalized Pin-Up Poster for Christina

Custom pin-up poster for Christina (click to enlarge) 

Watch this video on Youtube

Click here to see all my custom pin-ups on this blog
All my pin-up videos

Related posts:
Custom Pin-Up for an Australian Woman
Personalized pin-up art with a car
Personalized Pin-Up Commission
Custom Pin-Up Poster (1950s Style)
Custom Pin-Up for Susie
Custom Pin-Up for Cindy

Read more...

Custom Pin-Up for Susie

After I had made a post about my last custom pin-up drawing I was approached by three people who wanted to commission me for personalized pin-up art. I am going to dedicate a separate blog post for each individual pin-up project which I am allowed to show.

Today I want to show you a custom pin-up poster created for Susie as she gave me permission to show the result in my blog. I drew her as a sitting pin-up girl wearing a cool black corset and sexy stockings. The poster was drawn with color pencils. The pin-up will be a Christmas present for Susie’s fiancé and I hope he will appreciate this kind of present. As always I want to add the video alongside with the final artwork for you to watch the pin-up drawing process.

Personalized Pin-Up Drawing for Susie

Custom pin-up poster for Susie (drawn from her photo). Click to enlarge.

Watch this video on Youtube

Click here to see all my custom pin-ups on this blog
All my pin-up videos

Related posts:
Custom Pin-Up for an Australian Woman
Personalized Pin-Up Commission
Custom Pin-Up Poster (1950s Style)
Custom Pin-Up Gift for Christina
Custom Pin-Up for Cindy
Personalized pin-up art with a car

Read more...

Pencil Portrait of a British Girl Emma (Christmas Gift)

Today I want to show you the portrait of a British girl Emma who is the first person to commission me for a portrait to be given to her boyfriend as a Christmas gift. Although I have already created a custom pin-up which is supposed to be a Christmas gift, this particular portrait was my first graphite pencil Christmas gig this year. I had used one of the young girl’s photographs as a reference to make the portrait and here is the final result.

Pencil portrait for Emma

Emma from Great Britain

I have also made the video to make Emma even happier.

Watch this video on Youtube

It is never too early to think about Christmas gifts and especially about the presents for special people. Many have already begun thinking about what to get for their friends, family members, dear and beloved ones for this Xmas. Everyone wants to be original and to give the most unique and meaningful gifts each year. There are two types of gifts: practical gifts and sentimental ones. I must agree that practical gifts are the most popular and thought after. Who does not want to get an iPod, an iPhone, and iPad or other today's popular gadgets and stuff? Well, I am sure there are quite a few people who do not want such presents, but I believe the majority loves gifts which have the practical application. But can one get an expensive gadget or something like that every year for Christmas? What if I wanted to give a person I love something unique, personalized and reminding about me? What if I wanted to make a hint about my feelings to someone who did not know about them yet? What if I wanted my dear person to always remember me and our relationships? Should I get this person something way too practical and owned by thousands of other people? No way… This is when sentimental gifts come in handy.

Sentimental gifts can be anything from a small heart-shaped card to expensive jewelry. What is good about such gifts is that most of them can be a sweet addition to practical gifts. In my case, I offer personalized portraits drawn with pencils or pen & ink from photos in an unusual drawing technique. Portraits are not that boring as simple photographs because an artist can emphasize the beauty of any person's face in a very artistic and creative way. I draw my portraits from photos and people often ask me to use parts of different photographs in the same portrait (e.g. hair style from one photo and a smile from another etc.) which cannot be done properly with any photo editing software. Furthermore, when ordering custom portrait from an artist, your fantasy is less limited than in the case of photography. It does not matter if you want to be drawn as a retro pin-up girl, an elf princess or as whatever character you may think about, a skillful artist can implement your wishes. Unlike photographers, artists can more easily meet the most incredible client fantasy challenges.

I wish marry Christmas to Emma, who was so nice to open my artistic Christmas gift season, and I hope her friend will appreciate such present. And thank you, Emma, for choosing me as your portrait artist!

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Christmas gift portrait for Taya

Read more...

The Elf Princess (Portrait)

There was a guy from Italy who recently commissioned me the most unique and original portrait I had ever done during my entire artist career. He wanted to make a gift portrait for his wife and I was supposed to draw his wife as an elf princess with those cute pointed ears, a stylish crown and jewelry and a fairy look of this semi-divine mythological being.

It was a pen & ink portrait which I drew with cross-hatching using a regular photograph of the woman as a reference. I was especially pleased to draw this portrait as the Italian guy’s wife was from Ukraine (my Motherland). Ukrainian women are known all over the world for their beauty and I personally consider them as the most beautiful women in the world. I hope that my portrait will be a good gift for my compatriot and it will make her feel like a real princess of the fairy world of elves.

The elf princess portrait from a regular photo (pic + video)

Watch this video on Youtube

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Drawing an ink portrait from a picture

Read more...

Custom Pin-Up Poster (1950s Style)

Today I would like to tell you about another custom pin-up poster project which I completed a few days ago. There already was a post about my previous custom pin-up drawing from a photo in this blog. Unlike the previous one, today's pin-up was ordered by a lady as an original Christmas gift for her boy-friend. I've received a few photographs to use as references in order to draw a pin-up girl with the client's face. I chose one photo where I thought the face would perfectly suit the image of pin-up.

The woman who ordered the poster wanted to be a sexy nurse on the final drawing. So I offered a few rough sketches of pin-up nurses for her to choose the preferred posture for the final pin-up image.

Pin-Up Posture Options

When the posture was chosen by the client I could proceed with drawing. I used traditional media to create the artwork in order to be more close to classic 1950s pin-up drawing methods. My pin-up illustration was drawn with color pencils on an A3 size paper sheet. The client got a JPEG image file which size and high-resolution would allow creating large and high quality pin-up posters, calendars as well as printing the pin-up picture on t-shirts or other clothing and items using services from Zazzle or CafePress. The woman loved the final result (which you can see below) and I hope this pin-up poster will be a good Christmas gift for her and her man to spice up their holiday evening and to create the long lasting memory of passion moments.

The Final Pin-Up Artwork

Watch this video on Youtube

A personalized pin-up can be a good gift idea to express love and passion. What else other than a retro pin-up can be more playful, sexy, seductive, teasing and yet not vulgar and inexplicit symbol of female beauty? Those good old pin-up images stimulate men's fantasies even today as they were meant to do this in the most modest and cutest available way of seduction in which a woman revealing the natural beauty of her body is still not completely undisguised and keeps some secrets stimulating her man to become worth being allowed to discover more. Being drawn mostly by men artists (such as famous pin-up artists like Alberto Vargas, Al Moore, George Petty, Gil Elvgren), who knew very well what women should possess to make men crazy with love and desire, vintage pin-ups will always remain a symbol of an attractive woman for the majority of men.

Click here to see all my custom pin-ups on this blog
All my pin-up videos

Related posts:
Custom Pin-Up for an Australian Woman
Custom Pin-Up for Cindy
Personalized Pin-Up Commission
Custom pin-up for Susie
Custom Pin-Up Gift for Christina

Read more...

Hunting and Fishing Drawings

Shortly after I had finished the wildlife illustrations project for Buffalo and Company (if you follow my blog you might remember those drawings of an American buffalo, an elk, a bass, a trout and mallards I had created for Buffalo and Company. If you do not know what I am talking about, please, check out the related links below this post) I was approached by a guy from the USA, who had hunting and fishing business, about possibility to make some drawings for him. The guy was impressed by my wildlife illustrations and wanted something in the same style to create unique designs for his promotional products like t-shirts etc. He had plenty of interesting ideas and I really loved working for him.

I want to show you a few drawings I created for his hunting and fishing company which he was about to bring online. The company is called “The Daily Hush” (coined from “the daily hunt and fish”). You are welcome to visit their website dedicated to hunting and fishing. I do believe that sooner or later the site with an online shop, where you will be able to purchase various hunting and fishing products and accessories as well as t-shirts and other stuff with my drawings and designs exclusively created for "The Daily Hush", will become very popular among fishing and hunting lovers.

Fishing Hooks Logo

Fishing lure flies logo

Fish Circle Design

Trout forming a circle (black and white version) 

Trout forming a circle (color version) 

Cervine Skulls and Bones Design

Skulls with antlers and bones of a moose, an elk, a mule deer and a white tail deer

Wildlife Sketches

Elk sketch

Trout sketch

Wild goose

Related posts:
American Wildlife Illustrations
Catfish drawing

Read more...

Motocross Vector Illustrations

I want to show you the result of my work for Filter Publications, Inc., the publisher of Racer X Illustrated – a magazine and website in motocross and supercross as well as Road Racer X and Racer X Brand websites. I was asked to create vector illustrations of motorbike riders using as reference some photos supplied by the customer. Making all bikes yellow and depriving racers’ uniforms and bikes of all logos and brand names were among client’s requirements. Guys from Filter Publications, Inc. wanted vector illustrations as the vector format allows scaling images to any size without loss in quality, unlike the bitmap (aka raster) format. Since the drawings were supposed to be used to promote an iPhone motocross game on posters and other printing materials as well as one of the illustrations would be used as an iPhone icon for the game Filter Publications, Inc. needed both very small-sized images as well as extra large ones. Therefore the vector format was the best solution for them.

I never stop being amazed at how brave and skilled professional motorbike racers are. When I see what those fast riders can do with their bikes I the only word I can utter is “Wow!” Motocross, bike races and any other kind of motosports are pretty much tough and dangerous competitions for real men only. Although due to the vector images specificity it is impossible to make vector drawings as expressive and effective as they would be if done in bitmap format, I still hope I have managed to convey a little bit of racers’ courage and sporting blood in my illustrations. Below are shown the low resolution copies of the vector images. I also added simple backgrounds for the bikes to better stand out on the pictures.

Motocross illustrations (bikes and racers)

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Custom vector illustrations for a chiropractor
Expanding my team to create professional vector art

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Drawing a Wolf and a Fox

I’ve been experimenting with new drawing techniques and tools including those by Pentel and I came up with two drawings of wild animals – a wolf and a fox.

Wolf Drawing

I was supposed to draw a black and tan wolf for one of my clients and I decided to train myself in drawing this animal which I consider one of the most beautifully looking beasts on ink or pencil drawn pictures. I had been thinking about drawing a wolf for a long time before and I did not miss the opportunity to do it now. I preferred to kill two birds with one stone by drawing the animal I wished to draw so much and by experimenting with mixing ink and color pencils. I did not refuse to use my favorite cross-hatching drawing technique to make this wolf’s head drawing though. I have also made a video showing the wolf drawing process.

The wolf drawing is made with a pen and color pencils

Watch this video on Youtube

Fox Drawing

The second animal was a fox, of course. A wolf and a fox are deemed as a natural couple here in Ukraine as they are very common Ukrainian and Russian folktales characters. They are portrayed as their children’s godfather (wolf) and godmother (fox). In folklore the fox is sly while the wolf is naïve and somewhat dull, that is the reason why they are friends and rivals at the same time. Russian and Ukrainian people imbibe those tales with their mothers’ milk, therefore it was unquestionable that if there was a wolf, there should be a fox somewhere around. Thus the next drawing was to be a fox.

The fox was drawn while experimenting with drawing supplies which had been kindly presented to me by PentelArts. The main tool used here was a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen which is my favorite drawing tool for creating expressive outlines and strokes. Using those tools, I had to alter my drawing technique and style a little, although the drawing was still comparatively minimalist with a lot of economy of lines. People who had already seen the drawing of the fox said the animal looked fresh, vibrant and alive. I am very much pleased with people’s positive responses to my experimental fox and wolf drawings and I am satisfied with the results of my drawing experiments.

Art supplies from Pentel were used to make this fox drawing

Buy this royalty free artwork from 2CO
2CheckOut.com Inc. (Ohio, USA) is an authorized retailer for goods and services provided by Igor Lukyanov.

I have three little children (two boys and a girl). They are always looking forward to new animal drawings by their father. Every time I produce a good animal drawing I frame the image to give it to my kids who are waiting with anticipation for a new picture to be hung on the wall in their room. They already have a small animal drawings gallery.

Pictures of animals drawn by me on the wall of my children's room

By the way, if you love these drawings of a wolf and a fox, you can purchase high resolution images (digital files) from me to make high quality prints for any purposes. Just let me know if you want them.

Related posts:
My other animal drawings
Lion drawing

Read more...

Pentel – the Best Drawing Tools Ever

It seems that my dream of possessing high quality drawing tools has at last come true. I have received a parcel from Germany containing 3,5 kg (almost 8 pounds) of pens, markers and brushes from Pentel. Having opened the parcel, I was so much in awe that I stood motionless for a while contemplating this marvelous treasure I’ve being coveting for a long time since I first discovered Pentel drawing tools. In fact, Pentel art tools are the best I tried so far.

I fell in love with Pentel when I first saw a Pentel pocket brush pen in the Internet. I worked for a web and graphic design company at that time and constantly faced the problem of being unable to easily create a good looking outline for sketches and drawings I made for the company. I used a regular ink pen and had to do a number of strokes to make a pressure sensitive effect for outlines. I thought it would be good to have a kind of a brush with a fine tip allowing me to draw with ink controlling pressure and thus to vary the line thickness as needed to create beautiful looking outlines. I started looking for such drawing tool and this is when I discovered a Pentel pocket brush pen.

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen is a pen with a refillable cartridge containing pigmented ink which feeds a fine brush tip which is the most awesome element of the pen as it allows varying the line thickness in a single stroke. I was very much frustrated to find out that it was almost impossible to buy Pentel products in Ukraine. It seems that Pentel Co. Ltd is not present in the Ukrainian market so far. I was lucky to have a good friend in Berlin, Germany, who was kind enough to purchase and send me my first Pentel brush pen. And I was absolutely amazed at how flexible I became in drawing after I had tried the brush pen. This drawing tool had even exceeded my expectations. All good qualities of the brush pen make it a must have drawing tool for various kinds of drawing “genres” and styles ranging from manga and comics drawing to picturesque landscape paintings.

Using Drawing Tools from Pentel (Video)

Watch this video on Youtube

Watch this video on Youtube

The first commercial drawings I created with my new Pentel brush pen were cute panda bears drawn for a teacher from the USA William Cunningham. I made a few videos showing how those drawings had been made and uploaded them on Youtube. This is one of those videos:

Drawing a Giant Panda with a Pentel Brush Pen

This cute panda bear was drawn with a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen

Watch this video on Youtube

And this is when my drawings were noticed by guys from PentelArts – an online Pentel store in Europe. They really liked how I used the brush pen in the video and suggested sending me some more brush pens (including color ones) to further experiment with them and experience in full how Pentel tools can simplify work of an artist and make his/her artworks look better and more expressive. Since then Pentel brush pens had become my indispensable drawing tools in almost every drawing I create (just watch videos on my Youtube channel to get convinced).

I had not dared to use color brush pens for some time as I had been waiting for a good drawing commission but I got mostly black & white portraits and illustrations orders. And since I was eager to use them I took those color brush pens with me on my vacation at the Sea of Azov to experiment a little with a marine scenery painting. Here are a couple of sketches I had made using color brush pens from Pentel:

Sketches Drawn with Color Brush Pen from Pentel

A sketch drawn with color Pentel brush pens

Extensive usage of Pentel pocket brush pens and mentioning it in my drawing videos has not left people from PentelArts untouched and I was asked whether I wanted some other drawing supplies from Pentel to experiment with as I used some analogues they had in their product range. And how could I resist such a generous offer if my love for Pentel had begun from the first brush pen? I agreed anticipating my new experience with one of the best drawing tools brand. But what they had sent totally surprised and amazed me! Color and black brush pens, brushes for aquarelle painting, sign pens, outline markers, oil pastels and pastels for drawing on fabric, gel rollers and other drawing tools are now at my disposal. I will definitely try them all and make my best to master drawing with each of these tools. I will make a lot of videos showing performances of pens and brushes from Pentel. And I want to say big THANK YOU to PentelArts for this wonderful gift and for inspiring me to create new artworks fitting the highest quality level of Pentel drawing tools.

Related posts:
The best tool to outline drawings
Panda tattoo

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen drawing videos
Wacom Inkling review

Read more...

Drawing a Portrait from an Old Photograph

Another project commissioned by Andrew Hennigan was a portrait drawn from an old photograph. I was supposed to draw a pen and ink portrait from a small full-length photograph of one of Andrew’s great grandfathers who was born in 1879. The picture itself was taken in about 1900. The man on the photograph was an enthusiastic amateur photographer and I believe that is why this photograph had the best quality among other pictures of Andrew’s great grandfathers. Andrew has a dream of having good portraits of all his great grandparents one day as their vintage photographs are either too small or of bad quality to look good hanging on the wall. I hope that I will be able to help Andrew bring his dream to life when he finds usable photos of his ancestors whose portraits he would like to have. And I appreciate allowing me to show the original photograph, the final portrait and the drawing video in my blog.

Giving a new life to an old photograph

Watch this video on Youtube

Related posts:
Drawing an Ink Portrait from a Picture
Drawing a Family Portrait

Portrait of grandmother with Chevrolet Bel Air

Read more...

Drawing an Ink Portrait from a Picture

Today I would like to tell you about my recent portrait assignment. It was another portrait-from-photo commission. The portrait was created for a Communication Consultant Andrew Hennigan, based in Aix en Provence, France, and Stockholm, Sweden. The man teaches people how to communicate properly and professionally. Not many people know that good communication skills are in fact the core of a success almost in any sphere of today’s life beginning from an individual’s private life to big companies’ popularity and recognition in their market niche. Decent communication skills are far from being something people are born with. Actually, I believe there are more people who constantly face annoying and life-ruining problems while communicating with other people than those who are able to speak clearly, convincingly and eloquently. A lot of people cannot verbalize their thoughts, some have fear of public speaking, and others do not like how their voices sound or they are self-conscious about their appearance. Therefore if you experience these or similar problems and want to overcome those difficulties or you just want improvements in your communication abilities, I believe Andrew Hennigan is the man who can be of assistance, especially after I noticed how good he is in expressing his thoughts in multiple languages.

But let’s get back to the portrait. As usually it was an ink portrait drawn using cross-hatching technique on an A4 paper sheet. You are welcome to watch the video below to see the whole drawing process, although I had to speed up the video in order to upload it on Youtube. Andrew was very kind to allow showing the portrait and his photograph I had used as a reference. And I hope he will love the original I sent him and will find a proper usage of the high resolution digital copy of the portrait. Thanks for hiring me, Andrew!

Pen and Ink Portrait Drawn from a Photograph (pic + video)

Watch this video on Youtube

Related posts:
Drawing a Family Portrait
The Elf Princess

Read more...

Video Report No. 4

I released my fourth video report showing some of my artworks created during July and August 2010.

Watch this video on Youtube

Related posts:
My Video Report No.1
My Video Report No.2
My Video Report No.3

Read more...

New American Wildlife Illustrations

After a relatively short period of time since I had made wildlife illustrations for American Wildlife t-shirts by Buffalo and Company (today the company is called Buffalo Jackson Trading Co. ), the guys from Buffalo & Co. got back to me to offer another wildlife illustrations project to expand the series of “Honor Your Wild” t-shirts. I guess the first promotional campaign was a success for Buffalo & Company and people loved their t-shirts for which I had had honor to draw beautiful animals of North America.

This time I was asked to draw male and female turkeys as well as male and female white-tailed deer (aka whitetails). The guys from Buffalo & Company loved my cross-hatching drawing technique, therefore I traditionally used this technique for the new illustrations to match the style which had become a feature of the t-shirts recently released by Buffalo & Company.

I want to show you low resolution copies of wildlife illustrations created for Buffalo and Company as well as videos which I traditionally shoot for those who may be interested in mastering cross-hatching technique or simply like watching an artist drawing.

Turkeys Illustration

Male and female turkeys

Buffalo and Company's turkey t-shirt

Watch this video on Youtube

White-Tailed Deer Illustrations

Whitetail buck

Watch this video on Youtube

Whitetail doe

Watch this video on Youtube

I have always been impressed by how many creative ideas the management of Buffalo and Company has and how enthusiastic and energetic their team is. Being their best go to artist (as they call me), I was asked to help in implementing another their original idea of creating a unique series of American wildlife bow ties. For this purpose I was supposed to turn all wildlife illustrations previously created by me for Buffalo and Company into simplified black and white images, a kind of stencil pictures of animals (a bison, an elk, a brss, a trout, mallards, a male turkey and a male whitetail). And I did so, coz I am always happy to assist in my old clients’ projects and to help to bring their ideas to life. And here is what I came up with black and white American wildlife pics.

Stencil Wildlife Illustrations for Bow Ties

Products with my wildlife illustrations are available at Buffalo & Company on-line store.

Related posts:
My other wildlife illustrations for Buffalo and Company
Hunting and fishing drawings
Bison drawing
Lion drawing

Read more...

Drawing a Family Portrait

I would like to show you a family portrait that I have recently drawn for one of my clients on the occasion of his anniversary. I was provided with two separate pictures as a reference to draw from (one with the couple and the other with their cute daughter).

I used pen and ink to draw the portrait of this sweet American family using my favorite cross-hatching drawing technique. The portrait was drawn on an A3 size paper sheet. I created a black & white and a color version of the family portrait. The portrait was colored with Adobe Photoshop software. Having been scanned and processed on the PC, the digital version of the portrait had a rather big size and resolution to make large high-quality prints of the portrait. I hope this artwork portraying a happy American family was a good birthday gift.

I also created a video showing how the family portrait had been made. The video might be interesting for those who love to watch an artist working. I was allowed to show these pictures and the video, so here they are:

Family Portrait (pics + video)

Watch this video on Youtube

Related videos:
Drawing a young couple
Portrait of a grandma with a Chevrolet Bel Air
Drawing a custom greeting card

Read more...

Another Portrait of Robert E. Lee

Shortly after I had published my posts about the portraits of famous men created for Buffalo and Company, I was contacted by a man named Charles McDowell who really loved my portrait of Robert E. Lee (please, follow the link below this post to see this portrait). Charles was wondering if I could draw a portrait of General Robert E. Lee for him as well. So, I did. This time I used a painting of Robert E. Lee (not a photo as the first time) as a reference to draw a portrait of the General in my original style. The portrait was drawn with pen and ink on the A4 size paper sheet (8,3 x 11,7 inches / 21 x 29,7 cm.). Charles allowed me to show what I had come up with. So I included the low resolution copy of the portrait here as well as the Youtube video showing how the portrait was made.

Sometimes it’s not easy to find large enough portraits of famous people. Images with big resolution and size are rarely stored in the Internet. Therefore those who look for large portraits turn to such artists like me who are able to create large portraits using even medium-sized photos or paintings available online as references. After scanning, I’ve got a digital copy of the portrait (JPEG file) which I delivered to the client and which size will allow him to make rather large prints of this Robert E. Lee portrait.

My second portrait of Robert E. Lee

Watch this video on Youtube

Related posts:
Portrait of Robert E. Lee created for Buffalo and Company

Robert E. Lee on his horse Traveller
Portrait of General Stonewall Jackson

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Portrait of Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway is probably one of the most well-known men whose portraits I drew so far for the series of famous men t-shirts by Buffalo and Company (you can see other famous men portraits I have done and read about this assignment of mine using the corresponding links after this post). A lot of people outside the USA may have not a slightest idea about who Robert E. Lee, John Muir and even Theodore Roosevelt were (these are other famous men I was asked to draw for Buffalo and Company), but I am sure that there are more people all over the world who heard at least something about Ernest Hemingway and his literature legacy. Hemingway definitely “qualifies” to be considered as the model of masculinity. Being extremely smart and intelligent (I believe that the Nobel Prize in Literature can’t be won by any average guy), brave (he had responded to a Red Cross recruitment effort and signed on to be an ambulance driver in Italy during World War I and agreed to become a war journalist during World War II in spite of having been seriously wounded at the time of World War I) and thirsty for adventures (he loved hunting, fishing, traveling), Ernest Hemingway experienced a life saturated with events which had formed the real man’s character. He lived through good and awful times and shared a little bit of his valuable experience in his books. Those belletristic gems show us what it takes to be a man. It’s not easy, that’s why we call such men heroes and pay our tribute to them.

Traditionally, I supply a video along with the portrait. Enjoy!

Portrait of Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway

Watch this video on Youtube

My other famous men portraits:
Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt
Portrait of John Muir
Portrait of General Robert E. Lee

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