Tag: figure

  • Falling

    Falling

    This piece steps into a quiet suburban street during peak autumn, using familiar neighborhood architecture to explore an underlying narrative of melancholy, solitude, and narrative tension.

    The foreground is dominated by two massive, ancient trees framing a small lawn, where a solitary, semi-translucent figure sits slumped on a bench. Across the street, suburban life sits suspended in transition: a car parked by the curb beside cardboard boxes, and neighboring houses with their windows glowing warm against the cool encroaching evening. Are we witnessing someone waiting to leave, an eviction, a quiet reckoning with loss, or the ghostly memory of someone who once lived here watching new lives unfold? Leaving the circumstance ambiguous invites the viewer to fill the silence between the bench and the curb.

    Technically, the drawing was executed on watercolor paper using acrylics, India ink, and gel pens. The dense autumn canopy was built using intense, saturated acrylic washes layered with intricate pointillist dot work to create a shimmering, textured carpet of gold, copper, and vermilion. India ink linework defines the muscular bark, sprawling root systems, and architectural siding. Gel pens were brought in to lay down crisp, opaque highlights and subtle color shifts across the tree bark, the pavement, and the solitary figure, giving them a luminous, spectral presence amidst the burning fall foliage.


  • Flight Along the Hillside

    Flight Along the Hillside

    This graphite piece pushes the themes of isolation and the unknown into an active, high-tension narrative. Moving away from the static, contemplative vigils of the earlier drawings, here we see a lone figure running directly toward the viewer through a dense, textured field.

    The friction in the scene stems from what lingers just behind. Framed by bare, sprawling trees in the midground and the hazy canopy of the woods beyond, subtle marks in the graphite suggest additional figures watching or giving chase. Are they pursuers, ancient presences emerging from the tree line, or mere tricks of light in the overgrowth? Leaving those forms as vague impressions lets the viewer feel the urgency of the moment without spelling out the conclusion.

    Technically, the drawing was completed on Strathmore heavyweight paper using Staedtler graphite pencils. Staedtler lead offers crisp, controllable gradations that work exceptionally well across a textured ground. I used light, soft shading to establish the misty depth of the woods, while applying sharper, darker strokes to build the chaotic rhythm of the field and the sharp silhouette of the fleeing figure.


  • Quiet Boundary

    Quiet Boundary

    This graphite piece builds on my continued exploration of solitude, memory, and quiet intervals in rural spaces. The composition follows a rhythmic line of rolled hay bales resting along a fence row beneath bare, sprawling trees. Perched atop one of the bales sits the subtle impression of a solitary figure, gazing out over the pasture in a private moment of pause.

    Graphite lends itself naturally to this kind of atmospheric work, allowing me to build a hazy, soft-focus impression where subtle marks and soft shading do the storytelling rather than rigid, hard lines.

    Technically, the drawing was completed on Strathmore heavyweight paper using Mitsubishi graphite pencils. The paperโ€™s substantial tooth provides an ideal textured ground for dry media, catching the graphite to create a natural, grainy softness across the background and grass while allowing the darker Mitsubishi lead to lay down dense, rich contrast in the swirling texture of the bales and the tree branches.


  • The Reader and the Statue

    The Reader and the Statue

    Iโ€™m sharing a new piece today, built from a reference photo I took on a cool spring afternoon at the Georgia State Botanical Gardens in Athens.

    Walking through the grounds, I was immediately drawn to the relationship between these two figuresโ€”a man reading on a bench and a nearby sculpture. I loved the accidental, imitative gestures; both the living man and the stone figure seemed equally invested in their quiet activities. The contrast between the fleeting stillness of the reader and the permanent stillness of the stone was a dynamic I wanted to capture on paper.

    For this piece, I wanted the technique to reflect the atmosphere of that afternoon. Instead of rigid, heavy linework, I relied on quick dashes and the natural, expressive tendency of India ink. My goal was to give the illustration a whimsical and impressionistic sensation, capturing the feeling of the garden rather than just mapping out its exact details.

    To balance that loose, kinetic energy, I brought in acrylic ink very sparingly. It was used just to provide some opaque grounding in a few sparse locations across the piece, anchoring the expressive ink lines and giving the composition a bit of weight.

    Itโ€™s a quick study of a quiet momentโ€”where life and art happened to be doing the exact same thing.

    Technical Details:

    • 9×12 140lb cold press
    • Faber-Castell Pitt pens
    • Shuttle Art paint pens
    • Staedtler Pigment Liner
  • Woman on the Dock

    Woman on the Dock

    Date taken: 10/20/2012
    Camera: Pentax iST DL
    ISO 200 | 1/350
    M42 Lens