Donkey Kong Un-Tied - self-promotional illustration

This is a self-promotional piece that I drew up as a companion to my Donkey Kong sculpture for Vinyl Thoughts 2 in Dallas.

With sculpture and vinyl toys being new creative avenues for me, I thought I'd take the opportunity to tie it all back to the line art drawings I consider my primarily discipline and make double impressions at the show.  So while I worked on my Donkey Kong sculpture I also drew this up in my signature pen on scratchboard style to print on self-promotional postcards and hand out at the show.  I had a lot of fun with this one!

Illustrated Greeting Cards

Check out the illustrated greeting card collection on my etsy shop!  I wanted to compile my favorite pen & ink / scratchboard pieces from the past year, and also added a couple bonus items to the set.

Printed on recycled paper with blank interiors and envelopes.  And every purchase in the store comes with a bonus gift.  Happy shopping and thank you for your support!

Mammoth Down - Threadless Shirt Design

Please take a moment to vote for "Mammoth Down" at Threadless to help get it printed!

This is my first submission, and it would be super cool to see it in print.  Thanks for your support!

Cosmic Controls - Gallery Benefit Piece #2

Here's my second piece for Kettle Art's For The Love of Kettle benefit show on Sat, Feb 11th.  Follow the link for details.  Again, everything in the show is a steal for $50 and goes 100% to keeping the non-profit gallery afloat.  

I've been wanting to do a piece like this for quite awhile and hope to do some more on my usual scratchboards, possibly integrating color.  This one is nib pen on 9x12 primed masonite board.  This and the 'Empty Nest' piece were a good excuse to get used to working with a dip pen instead of technical fine tip pens.  Naturally I'm most comfortable on scratchboard and still feel they're the most flexible medium for me, but I enjoying playing with new materials!

Empty Nest - gallery benefit piece

Just finished up this piece for a benefit show at Kettle Art ("For The Love of Kettle") on February 11th.  I'm told every year there's a line down the block of people waiting to get their hands on the work, all of which sells for $50.  This is a major steal, by the way, and there's a huge group of talented Dallas artists showing work.

This piece was a challenge for me in the sense that I was working on a primed piece of wood instead of my super smooth claybords, which required that I use different tools to contend with the rougher and more absorbent surface.  I went through a large handful of pens, sharpies, markers, brushes, and finally settled into a comfortable use of a dip nib pen.  So far all of these new gallery opportunities are forcing me to really stretch out of my comfort zone, material wise, while retaining a sense of my usual aesthetic.  All good things!

Kablam! - mixed media Soda Gallery piece

This is a piece I just finished for the upcoming Fab 50 Show at The Soda Gallery in Dallas on March 1st (50 artists, 50 pieces, $50 each).

This was my first attempt at adding color to a scratchboard, and found that it's remarkably easy to to add watercolor washes to the Ampersand Claybords.  The silver was also an experiment, where I masked out the black drawing with a carefully cut chunk of blue painter's tape.  Spray painting the black was a total disaster, actually, because the paint wouldn't adhere over the silver layer.  I ended up having to manually draw the lines and hand paint the fills.  The painter's tape did a nice job of texturizing the silver when I pulled it off, which was a happy accident.  


Despite my reluctance to integrate color into my drawings, generally, this was successful enough that I suspect I'll be doing more of it down the line.

Sinking Mastodon Illustration & T-Shirt Design

I did this illustration towards the end of the summer and never got around to posting it.  Inspired by the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, I wanted to do a piece illustrating the murky decline of a mastodon.  It's a bit more graphic than my usual work in the sense that there's no detailed background, instead letting the black literally swallow the image down.  

I ended up adapting the drawing into a T-Shirt mockup for one of my favorite metal bands.  We never made it to production, but it was a valuable experience communicating back and forth on the design and playing with color for a change.

Pterodactdinner... yet another dinosaur drawing

Yet another dinosaur drawing... 8x10, pen on scratchboard.

A delectable dino dinner for drawing dorks like me, with color and 3d versions to follow. In fact, I have a feeling I will soon be starting an spin-off blog featuring my 3d drawings, which can for now be seen at AlbrightIllustration.com and facebook.com/albrightillustration.

Thanks, as always, for looking!

Flying Spaghetti Monster / SquiddySkull

While working on some tee-shirt concepts for a favorite metal band of mine, I deviated for a moment from some more lofty and original ideas and went with a more stereotypical skull graphic.  The thumbnails actually looked pretty sweet so I thought I'd do a small 6x8 inked version, ballpoint on bristol board. 

It took just under 2 hours to do this while sitting at my local coffee shop during their weekly open mic night.  Towards the end, as I was making the background a nice and evil black, an epic solo performance of 'Jesus Loves Me' provided a lovely soundtrack. Probably not the inspiration they were going for, but the lord works in mysterious ways. Or flying spaghetti monster, whichever.

David Lynch Portrait Illustration

click to see detail

Here's the final scan of my David Lynch scratchboard portrait.  I found myself taking a different approach from last week's Stephen King.  Rather than scratching with a heavy hand and the intention of making bold white shapes, I opted instead to very delicately mark the surface with small lines that add up to a lot of gradual tonal shifts and a softer focus.  It's a slower process, but one I enjoyed quite a bit and plan on exploring further.  


I spent some time in photoshop testing red velvet curtains in the background and some eerie coloring throughout, but couldn't decide if it benefitted the image enough to justify.  Sometimes it's hard to beat a plain old, bold black and white drawing.  Although admittedly, seeing the small version below I certainly don't mind it.  Who knows, maybe I'll keep tinkering with it.  


The scratchboard itself is an 8"x10" and took two or three hours in preparation, and maybe seven to nine of actual scratching.  Here are some thumbnail sketches and a color test...

Happy BlogPatrick's Day!

Happy Saint Paddy's Day everyone!

I wanted to include some thumbnails and roughs for the above image, showing how I went through a couple stages of small pencil sketches before scanning, blowing it up, and then inking using a Pentel Pocket Brush pen (a new tool for me!).  This was both a material experiment and a procedural one (as I typically use technical pens, plus I tried inking the image backwards).  Doing it backwards was a test in keeping myself objective about the line quality and composition after staring at the roughs for so long.  I fumbled with the brush pen a bit, but that's all part of the learning process.  Finally, the inked 9x12 drawing was scanned and colored in photoshop.  As always, feel free to click-to-enlarge.

sketchbook tests

super-rough

cleaned up rough

9x12 inked drawing

Crows & Twitter

First off, I'd like to invite you to follow my Twitter posts.  While I tend to use the blog for more formal posts (finished pieces, generally), I do use Twitter a bit more frequently to post doodles, sketches, and other work-in-progress drawings.  So to keep up on what I'm doing, head over to My Twitter Page!

Today's drawing is of, well, as you can see... crows!  

On one hand I suppose crows might be considered cliche or low-brow.  But alas, like skulls, there's no denying their strength as gothic, otherworldly icons.  I might attribute my fascination with them to watching Hitchcock's The Birds as a white-knuckled child.  In any case, those of you who have read my book Stressed Out West: a nervous wordless graphic novel know that crows aren't anything new to my work... just something that's been lying dormant.  I've had the itch to get back to drawing them, and I suspect this might be the beginning of a new body of work.  Again, many more crows are up on my twitter page.  

Happy snow-day to those of you in North Texas!

Dog Portrait - Scratchboard Tutorial pt 4

Welcome back to the 4th and final entry in the BigDumbAnimal Scratchboard Tutorial!  So far we've discussed what makes scratchboard art unique, as well as the recommended materials and tools, the process of transferring a source image to the board itself, and the techniques for mark-making and shading.  If you've been following along and have a scratchboard of your own in the works, you may be ready for some tips for revisions and corrections.  And if you're quite happy with your drawing and just want to show it off, we'll address that too!  Thus, our final entry will cover adjustments, revisions, finishing, and presentation!


ADJUSTMENTS & CORRECTIONS


The wonderful thing about scratchboard art is that, assuming you haven't dug all the way through the layer of white clay, you can make multiple rounds of revisions.  Made an area overly bright with too many scratches?  Simple pull out a black permanent pen and fill those unwanted white areas.  On claybord and scratchboard I prefer technical pens such as Microns or Alvin Techliners, generally with a .3 to .5 millimeter point, which are smooth and don't skip along the smooth surface.  You could also use black india ink with a fine brush.  If you don't have access to either of those, you could do a lot worse than Uniball Vision Elite pens from your local office supply store.  These have a great flow, super-black marks, and are waterproof and fade-resistant.  In fact, Uniballs are my prefered brand when working on paper, they just don't write as smoothly as I'd like on the scratchboard surface.  In any case, once you've made your revisions, don't worry if the areas that you've re-inked have a sheen or appear to be a different shade of black from the board itself... you can use a finishing spray to unify those tones and protect the board, but more on that in a bit.

Remember in my last post when I introduced the technique of Broken Hatching?  Similar to using crosshatching to make your highlights brighter, you can use a black pen to make perpendicular marks through your scratches.  This will help by breaking up your white lines to introduce some texture and tone down the highlights that may have gotten a little too bright.  In my case (looking at the photo above), I decided that while the board was close to completion, it was overall a bit brighter than I intended.  I also felt the dogs could pop a bit more if I introduced some shadow behind them.  So I took out my black pen and cross-hatched the background to soften up the lines, alternating between pen and scraper tool to find a happy medium.

Detail shot with lots of black correction lines

Above you'll see a detail scan of Gizmo's ear.  Here you can see where I re-introduced black lines to tweak the shading and add shadow.  Note the strong outline along the right side and the black hatching lines just above the bottom edge highlight.  Funny isn't it, how much a mess it is up close?  But from a distance, you'd never know!


At this point in the drawing, I recommend standing a good 5 feet away to help identify any areas that may need some final touch-ups.  Again, it's easy to get overly hung-up on the finer details when your face is a foot away, but most people are going to see your drawing from a distance--and you should too!


If you still have any of those graphite transfer paper marks showing on your board, now is a great time to grab an eraser and gently remove them.  For this, I recommend Magic Rub vinyl erasers or a Sanford Design kneaded eraser.  Both will be available by the box-load at your art or craft store.


One last word on corrections: 
If you have, in fact, dug so deep that you've reached the end of the clay layer and still need it whiter, don't worry!  You can paint it back in with some White Opaque ink from the local art supply store.  While not as flexible as alternating between scraper and black pen, you should be able to carefully brush those trouble areas back to good health.


Finally, here's my finished portrait of Gizmo and Snoopy!

FINISHING & PRESENTATION


Now that you're happy with your scratchboard and psyched to show it off, you can have fun deciding how to present it!  Scratchboards look great in black frames, especially those without glass.  If you do decide to present it this way, it's a good idea to use some spray finisher to protect the surface and help even out the tones.  Ampersand recommends Krylon Matte Finish #1311 on their website, and that's precisely what I use on my boards. It's available at any art store and does a nice job of deepening the blacks while removing the shine or scuffs that may have accumulated from my hands or eraser.  It also protects the board from dust, moisture, etc.  If you prefer a glossy finish, you can buy the glossy formula instead.  Just give it a coat or two, let it dry, and plop it in that frame!

CONCLUSION

And that brings us to the end!  If you've read this far, thanks for following along and I hope you've been encouraged to try scratchboard for yourself!  It's a very unique process, and an even more unique aesthetic.  It does take some practice, but I promise you'll be happy you tried!  And of course, if once you get started you need any help, I'm always available to lend a helping hand, eye, or ear.  

Stay tuned for less typing and more drawing.  Have a great week everyone!

Dog Portrait - Scratchboard Tutorial pt 3

SHADING TECHNIQUES

click to enlarge for detail

Before we start scratching into your board, let's take a moment to look at some basic shading techniques.  These are important not just to scratchboard art, but to drawing in general!  I sketched up some examples for you to check out above.  I drew these in black to get the ideas down quickly, but the approach is exactly the same whether you're using pencil, pen, scratch tool, marker, crayon, etc.


Hatching

• Hatching is your most basic shading method.  Similar to scribbling, but with a tad bit more control.  It's basically the use of parallel lines to imply value.  The closer together your lines are, the darker your shading will be.

Cross-Hatching

• Cross-hatching introduces perpendicular lines to your first set of hatched lines, taking the values even darker.  You can also angle your lines beyond the standard 90 degrees for different effect.

Stippling

• Stippling is the use of small dots to build up value.  I tend to use stippling for shading skin tone because it's less distracting than lines and can be built up more gradually.  It's a time consuming process, but has a beauty that's hard to match.  Check out my 'Potty Training Portrait' post for a great example of this technique.

Broken Hatching

• Broken hatching is my favorite, and can look really elegant.  This is where you start with basic hatching technique, but then go back in to break the lines up with perpendicular marks of the opposite color (via pen on scratchboard, or via scraper tool on claybord).  This is useful when you want your hatched shading a bit softened or faded out at the edges.  The background in my 'Potty Training Portrait' makes a lot of use of broken hatching.

Combinations

• Don't be afraid to experiment with combinations of these techniques.  Each is good for different things, and bringing them together can have a great effect!  Have fun with them, and practice all the time!  (I draw little boxes and play with shading techniques while on the phone, etc.)

Now let's get back to our scratchboards!

SCRATCHING THAT BOARD (vrecka, vrecka!)

Now that you've got your image transferred and you're happy with your shapes of value, go ahead and grab your scraper tool of choice and go at it!  If you're hesitant to proceed, the best place to start would be the center of a highlight where you have some wiggle room to test your technique.  Remember the shading methods that I outlined above, but don't be afraid to experiment!  Try slow deliberate scratches.  Try fast and sloppy scratches!  Try parallel lines for grey tones, or add perpendicular lines to go even brighter (hatching & cross-hatching)!  You can even make quick little pecks at the surface to make small dots of value (stippling).  

A word of advice--work the whole surface evenly and don't spend too much time in one place.  Make sure you're moving around and addressing the whole image, gradually bringing those highlights out together.  That way you won't find that you've overworked your image or dug too deep into the surface. 

I broke my own rules, getting a little gung ho on the dogs while ignoring the background... oh well :) 

Keep on alternating your area of focus, always referencing your original image to make sure you're getting the values right.  Try looking at it upside down (remember, this tricks us into really SEEing the values as they are, not as our brains THINK they are).  And make sure you stand up every few minutes to look at it from a distance.  It's easy to get tunnel vision and get overly hung up on the fine detail without seeing the image as a whole.

NEXT UP:  

On the next and final entry of the BigDumbAnimal Scratchboard Tutorial, we'll look at some more techniques for refining the image and how to fix those boo boos that inevitably will happen.  But don't worry, it's only art!

... Continue to Part 4

Dog Portrait - Scratchboard Tutorial pt 2

Welcome back to the BigDumbAnimal scratchboard tutorial!  While I don't profess to be an expert per se, nor do I mean to suggest there aren't more exhaustive scratchboard tutorials out there, I am an enthusiast with a desire to teach!  And so long as I'm posting my own personal work on this blog, I figure I might as well leave some interesting or useful information about my process for those who choose to read beyond the pretty pictures.  Now, let us get back to the good stuff!


TRANSFERRING THE IMAGE


Now that you have all of your materials, we're ready to start transferring the image to your board!  (if you don't have your scraper tool handy just yet, no worries.  You won't need that until later) 


Make sure your image and transfer paper are both cut down to the size of your actual board.  Be careful handling the transfer paper, as it has a tendency to leave a fine residue everywhere!  But don't worry--like I said before, it will wash out of most everything.  And if you want, you can take a tissue and wipe off any excess graphite from the paper.  A little bit goes a long way.


Now you're going to make a sandwich with your board, transfer paper, and source image.
First off lay your source image, face up, directly on top of the scratchboard.  These will be your two pieces of bread.  Now using a strip of masking tape folded over the top of the board, hold the image in position.  Now, place your transfer paper face down between the board and your image, using a strip of masking tape along to bottom to hold it all in position.  The tape should now be touching both the face of your image and the backside of your scratchboard, not necessarily the transfer paper and ideally not the black surface of your scratchboard.  The reason I suggest getting your image in place before the transfer paper is to avoid shifting which may leave some of the graphite residue in areas you didn't mean for it to.

Before you start transferring your image, keep in mind that when working on scratchboard you want to draw the highlights, not the shadows or outlines.  For that reason, I'm hesitant to use the phrase 'trace your image'.  If you need to leave a dark line to define a shape, you'll want to focus on the areas surrounding that outline.  The best tactic here is to try seeing your image as a series of shapes of value, tracing around the highlights rather than defining outlines.  In my case, I followed the shapes of bright white and patterns within the dogs' fur.  My favorite trick, both while transferring and shading, is to turn my drawings upside down.  This helps to trick the mind into looking at the actual values instead of relying on our preconceptions of what we're drawing.  You'll find you're much more likely to focus on highlights and shadows than outlines.  Now get out any old pen or pencil and get started on that transfer!  A gentle touch will work... again, a little bit of graphite goes a long way!

Once you feel you've identified the major shapes of value, go ahead and peel the tape back from the bottom.  Gently lifting up the transfer paper and source image, you'll see your marks transfered to the board.  Check to make sure you didn't miss anything important.  If you did, go ahead and lay them back down and rework those missed areas.  Otherwise if you're comfortable moving forward, go ahead and toss your transfer paper.  I tend to keep my source image attached so that I can easily flip it up and down for comparison, but you can also keep it to the side of your board for reference.  In fact, I tend to print a couple extra copies of my source image to have around just in case.


NEXT UP:  
Scratching that Board (vrecka, vrecka!).... Continue to Part 3

Mastodon vs Sabre Tooth

Greetings!  Here's an 8x10 claybord... my first in fact!  It was inspired by the legendary metal band Mastodon, something that I'd been plotting for months before I finally got to work on.  I was originally going for vicious and violent, but as is typically the case, a bit of my cute and cuddly cartoon style crept in.  Regardless, I'm really happy with the movement in the composition and the consistent texture throughout.  This was really fun to work on and definitely kicked off my new claybord obsession!

To those of you who may have seen these already, I promise to start uploading NEW drawings as soon as I'm back in my apartment and have a scanner handy!