Guns & Girls - short poses

Franzi with Walther P-99

 Tuesday nights, I sit and draw right alongside the Life Drawing Workshop participants I teach at Sony. These are some of my short pose demonstration drawings. The drawing are 2, 5 or 10 minutes studies, drawn on 18" x 24" Canson 50 pound sketch paper with a 6B graphite stick.

Franzi with MP-5

Meegin -Chinese fans I

Meegin - short poses

Meegin with Katana

Meegin - the hitcher

Meegin - Chinese fan II

Meegin with P-99

Meegin short pose

Meegin short pose

Meegin with MP-5

Sketchbook Jam - September

The second Friday of every month is the Sketchbook Jam, held at Studio 2nd Street in Encinitas, California. This month it coincided with Ron Lemen's birthday, one of the studio's proprietors. The place was packed with artists, friends and well wishers, and we all began to draw right away.

Before the place got too crazy, I drew Kathy McCord, a children's book illustrator and new friend. Participants of the Sketchbook Jam take turns posing on the model stand for one another. Posing (and holding still) for 20 minutes really provides an appreciation for the difficult job models do for us.

I drew Kathy in my recycled paper sketchbook, the one I made from old paper grocery bags a while back. Indian Red colored pencil and white charcoal pencil on brown paper.

The lovely and talented art student, June was the first person brave enough to jump on the modeling stand that night. She wore a top hat in honor of Ron Lemen's birthday, illustrating his current "wearing many hats" lifestyle. I forgot mine that night. Doh!

Black colored pencil and white charcoal pencil on old brown paper.

 A guy with a giant beard, Victoria Bearden, Vanessa and Ron Lemen (back to back) and June enjoying a wonderful Southern California night.

San Diego is Underwater

Lee Partridge, San Diego's CIO of Retirement Fund for ai5000. Illustration: Graham Smith

Art Director, SooJin Buzelli for Asset International's ai5000.

When the assignment to illustrate a portrait of Lee Partridge came in, I already knew the story. Lee Partridge is San Diego's newest Chief Investment officer for the cities underwater retirement fund, and he has a very complicated path ahead of him.

The article was not compete at the time of the assignment and the photo reference was super tiny and low res - so my first round of ideas danced around the idea of a straight up portrait and revolved around symbols of San Diego and business icons instead.

Art Director, SooJin Buzelli gave me "navigating a minefield" as the lynchpin to solving this problem. And upon review of the first batch of thumbnails, reminded me she wanted a portrait, not a complex scene. She also sent me a nice big fresh pile of hi-res photos to work from. Yes!

thumbnails for ai5000. Illustration: Graham Smith

Pencil sketches for ai5000. Illustration: Graham Smith

Using the sea mines symbols, and the waves that represent San Diego (and the condition of the retirement fund) from the first round of thumbnails, I quickly sketched a few portraits of Lee Partridge and sent them to SooJin.

A sketch was selected within minutes and I began working on developing the illustration right away.

The assignment was for a full page illustration, and I like to draw things pretty large. The sketch was done in non- repro blue pencil and inked on 11" x 14" Strathmore paper. Even though I sketched the the whole scene in one piece, I decided to ink the portrait and the sea mines separately. That way I could have a little wiggle room when it came time for final cropping.

Sea Mines ink detail for ai5000. Illustration: Graham Smith

Lee Partridge ink detail for ai5000. Illustration: Graham Smith

Original inking for ai5000. Illustration: Graham Smith