The Cocktail Napkin - Thunder Thighs

The Cocktail Napkin - Graham Smith

Art Director, Craig Edwards pitched an interesting idea for "The Cocktail Napkin" - the last page feature in Miller-McCune magazine. He said, "The feature is a collection of short, humorous stories, I want the illustration to be doodled directly onto a cocktail napkin, then photographed at a bar".

"This months blurb is about a new type of dinosaur recently discovered and the funny name the scientists gave it."

Creating the funny little drawing was the easy part, but the assignment was to deliver a photograph of that drawing.

Suddenly, I needed to recreate a bar scene in my studio, and since this was a rush job, I needed to do it right away. Red reflections were added by dangling Christmas lights just out of frame. I sprinkled water drops nearby to add some authentic bar flair. I did use an actual fountain pen to draw the thunder thighed dinosaur, but not the pen in the photo. That pen is a Pelican, and has a deep blue pearl barrel, chosen as more photogenic than my daily drawer.  Shot = Jack Daniel's.

To get that narrow band of focus on the drawing, I opened the aperture of my 50mm lens up all the way, to f1.8 and popped the camera on a tripod. In the test photos, the shot glass still looked dark, so I held a tiny flashlight above it to add little sparkle details.

Next time, I'll try iced tea in the shot glass. It probably illegal to waste Jack Daniel's for a photo shoot.

Cheers,

G.

Art Director Craig Edwards

Craig Edwards by Graham Smith

I illustrated this portrait of Art Director Craig Edwards for an article in St. Louis Magazine about his successful redesign of their magazine.

As an art director, Craig was not happy with how his existing head shots fit the layout, and asked me to draw a more flattering version for the article. I gave his portrait the "rockstar" treatment, punched up his faux hawk and gave him Burt Reynold's eyebrows. To make the portrait a bit more engaging, I changed the direction of his eyes to look directly at the viewer.

# 2 round brush and pen with india ink. EF 513 nib on Aquabee super deluxe paper. 5.5 x 8.5 inches.

Life Drawing Workshop: experiments on washed paper

Ian

Ian struck a slouchy, laid back pose at the life drawing workshop Meetup last night.

Afterwards, we all hit a new noodle shop in Mission Hills, San Diego. Izakaya Masa. We coudn't get to that little hole-in-the-wall fast enough after the workshop, we were all starving! All the artists were delighted to learn they use the old school, wavy style noodles in a super delicious pork broth. Oh yeah. Had to get the deep fried squid and chicken with spicy mayo too.

Sherman

Sherman (the Shermanator) posed for the Life Drawing Workshop I host at Sony. Between helping the artists refine their drawings, I was able to chisel out a drawing of my own. "The Shermanator" got his name from his amazing ability to stand perfectly, absolutely still.

Lizz

Cadi

Lizz is one of the top life drawings models in the San Diego and always a crowd favorite to draw. I'd like to note, her feet are not actually gigantic, I just draw them that way. Also, she has a real left hand, not a catchers mitt as indicated in the drawing. That night, it was all about the spicy squid. The best place to get spicy squid, especially late at night, is China Max. Actually, all the food is great there.

We drew Cadi at the Life Drawing Workshop Meetup, at Art Institute a few Wednesday's back. I laid the drawing out quickly, in the first 20 minutes. When the pose reset for the next 20 minutes, the models chair slid off the stage, scaring everyone in the room. Mostly Cadi. (Not hurt. All cool.) Later that night, we all went out for Japanese noodles at Tajima.

I learned it's better to start your drawing over, than try to fix a slightly moved pose. Annnd, don't put the models chair near the edge of the stage. It's considered "very bad luck" if you damage the models!


Terracotta, scarlet red, burnt umber, indian red, delta blue and white charcoal pencils on 18 x 24 inch, 80 pound Strathmore Premium Recycled drawing paper, with a raw sienna acrylic wash.