In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.
Vincent Van Gogh

Here are a few recent pieces from a couple of my sketchbooks. I like to sketch in a fast, loose and rambling style. It’s an exercise in searching out the volume and edges of a subject by bouncing your way around the page. Most of these are drawn with a Bic Ultra ball point pen, which I find is the perfect tool to use with this approach. The line can smoothly transition from barely there to a nice dark grey while maintaing a thin line weight.

Inspired by the classic book, Lord of the Flies, which my son will be reading this year in his English lit class. Though there is no passage in the book that actually describes a scene like this, (although if you’ve read the book you know a decapitated pig’s head plays a prominent role). Instead, the drawing began to emerge with thoughts of the tribal nature and savagery the island bound kids fall in to.



Don Quixote, drawn after his name came up in a tv show that was playing in the background.



An exploratory sketch for the character of Uncle Zachary from the Time Scavengers side project I’ve been playing around with from time to time. (See the sidebar)



Sketch from a live model during an Artist Guild meeting.

It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.
Mark Twain

A few more of the interior pieces created for the early reader’s version of Gulliver’s Travels, the satiric commentary on modern humanity by Jonathon Swift, which has developed a second life as a children’s classic. These illustrations follow where we left off in the first series, shown in my previous blog post, and relate to Gulliver’s second, third and forth voyages. All were drawn in a simple, staightforward style, with an HB pencil on Strathmore paper.

The second excursion, lands Gulliver in Brobdingnag, where he is as relatively tiny as the native population was on his initial trip to Lilliput. After the experience of being a giant, he now sees what life is like at the opposite end of the spectrum.


Gulliver finds that being tiny means even the simplest situations can be frustrating, as wasps the size of large birds interrupt his breakfast.



During a seaside outing in which Gulliver is carried along in his custom built house, a seagull swoops down and steals him away from Brobdingnag.


Marooned after a pirate attack during his third voyage, Gulliver is rescued by the people of Laputa, who live on a floating island.


After being set back on solid ground, the island of Glubbdubdrib, Gulliver visits a powerful sorcerer’s palace, which is protected by ancient ghost guards.


On his final voyage, a mutinous crew sets Gulliver adrift in uncharted waters. He makes landfall, only to find himself in a place where the horse-like Houynhnms are the intelligent rulers, and the human Yahoos, are savage beasts.

Gulliver is eventually asked to leave the Houynhnms after they hear him describe humans penchant for war, and with a tearful goodbye, he returns to England. He is forever changed by his experiences though, especially the time spent with the gentle Houynhnms. In a final jab at modern society, Swift has Gulliver spend the rest of his days shunning humanity and happily spending time with his horses who he considers his only true friends.