I want my drawings to look like watercolor paintings in black and white, somewhere between a photograph and a sketch. The actual lines are not as important, most times, as the degree of shading. Dark to light, thick to thin. That's usually how these things fill in. That's what eats up the time.
Click on photo, then click again to enlarge.
I really do work from dark to light, thick to thin lines, top to bottom. Once the black is in, there's no going back. But it provides a guide for where to put the other shades, gradually going lighter and lighter.
I have several boxes full of pencils of various sizes and degrees of hardness, many sharpened all the way down. Somewhere along the line I picked up one of those old-fashioned elementary school wall pencil sharpeners. I have a couple kneaded erasers (like Silly Putty) for the whitest whites, and a few rubbing sticks for blending the grays together. A lot of the shading is actually done with the side of the pencil tip. Yes, I break a lot of leads.
I do my own framing, too -- even to the point of painting the wood and the mats, if needed. Sometimes the house smells like a paint shop!
Most times I have two or three pictures in the works, in various stages. I like to draw on weekends, or days off, when I can devote a good five or six hours. I turn on the music in my so-called "Man Cave" and sketch away, in between loads of laundry and other mundane house tasks. After an hour or so I can generally tell if a picture will "work" -- or not. Some take a day, others take a week. Winter seems to be a good time for drawing, and there's usually an uptick in requests for illustrations of friends' family members, including dogs and cats! Recently I completed a CD cover.
The drawings I keep for myself are generally of my daughters, or my two dogs and two cats. Mostly I draw musicians: Miles Davis, Keith Richards, Jimmy Page, Frank Zappa, Pete Townshend. All are on display on this site, and some are for sale.
The cool jazzy fella featured here is Bill Nelson -- not really a jazz player at all. In fact he was once a "glam rocker" fronting Be-Bop Deluxe in the 1970s. Extremely prolific, although you've probably never heard of him. A one-man band operating out of his home studio in England, he does it all. I think he's great.
This picture hangs in my office at my "real job," and I look at it to remind myself that there's still a creative flame inside of me.
Welcome to Tom Wills Productions and thank you for spending some time on my site!
To inquire about ordering and pricing: willstom01@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment