Igor Lukyanov - Graphic Artist | Illustrator | Portraitist

Howling wolf

2017-01-11T11:35:00.001-08:00

2015-06-29T12:31:00.001-07:00

John Muir ( April 21, 1838 – December 24, 1914) was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher and early advocate of preservation of wildeness in the United States.
Finally settling in San Francisco, Muir immediately left for a week-long visit to Yosemite, a place he had only read about. Seeing it for the first time, Muir notes that "He was overwhelmed by the landscape, scrambling down steep cliff faces to get a closer look at the waterfalls, whooping and howling at the vistas, jumping tirelessly from flower to flower... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir

Today i want to share my last project dedicated to John Muir and the Yosemite Half Dome mountain.

You can watch the "making of" video as well.

Elk drawing

2015-05-22T14:37:00.000-07:00

Beautiful Colorado mountains and an elk.

Hunting illustration

2015-05-21T15:09:00.001-07:00

Being a hunter i have made this piece of art with great pleasure.

As usual, you can watch me creating this at my YouTube channel

Portrait of Victor Hugo

2014-10-09T14:31:00.000-07:00

Today i want to share my next portrait created for Sticky Leaves. http://teespring.com/victorhugo
Victor Marie Hugo (26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement. He is considered one of the greatest and best known French writers. Outside France, his best-known works are the acclaimed novels Les Misérables, 1862, and Notre-Dame de Paris, 1831 (known in English as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame). He also produced more than 4,000 drawings, which have since been admired for their beauty, and earned widespread respect as a campaigner for social causes such as the abolition of the death penalty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Hugo

Portrait of Walt Whitman

2014-08-28T03:37:00.000-07:00

Walter "Walt" Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse.

This drawing was created for Sticky Leaves which is a new company based in the USA that's dedicated to helping people show off life passions and positive world views on high-quality, artistic t-shirts sold at a reasonable price. They're starting things off on Teespring and hope to expand to having their online store set up soon. This Walt Whitman design can be purchased on their latest shirt, which is available here: http://teespring.com/waltwhitman

Watch me creating this art on YouTube:

Quote Artwork

2014-01-04T05:50:00.000-08:00

My friend and loyal client Anna (the one for whom I create images for luggage tags she is selling on Etsy) asked me to illustrate a quote by Steve Maraboli that goes: "She is delightfully chaotic; a beautiful mess. Loving her is a splendid adventure".

Well, it's kinda hard for a man to illustrate a mysterious female soul on a single drawing but I tried as best as I could and Anna loved the result. So here is a custom quote artwork I created for Anna:

She is delightfully chaotic; a beautiful mess. Loving her is a splendid adventure. ― Steve Maraboli

Custom Ethnic Luggage Tags

2014-01-03T13:14:00.002-08:00

I have recently created another series of custom drawings for the luggage tag shop owner on Etsy . If you follow my blog publications you might remember that I and my team members have already made luggage tag images for this client (see vintage fashion luggage tags and sports and hobbies luggage tags). Since then I've made friends with Anna - the Funny Luggage Tags shop owner and one of my best clients. I really enjoy working for her because she is both a good person and a Russian-speaking citizen of the United States. And since I am also a native Russian speaker I have a special attitude to this customer.

Speaking about nationalities, I should mention that the new series of luggage tags addresses various ethnic groups of buyers such as Asians, Latinos and African Americans. It's a wise move for someone selling things in the USA. After all the United States of America is a melting pot of different cultures, ethnicities, religions and races. Therefore any individual approach to buyers who are proud of their ethnicity can always be beneficial. So here are the images:

Drawing for ethnic luggage tags targeted at Asian women

Drawing for ethnic luggage tags targeted at African American women

Drawing for ethnic luggage tags targeted at Latin American women

Flying Bird Drawings

2013-10-02T10:28:00.000-07:00

Flying birds seem to be a trend with my clients. After I had first created a drawing of flying mallards for Buffalo Jackson Trading Co. a few years ago, I was approached by a number of people wishing to have a flying bird drawn for different purposes including logo design and branding, web site graphics, t-shirt design, custom stationery design etc. No wonder, flying birds are popular as they look really beautiful and graceful and let humans at least feel the freedom they will never have. In this blog post I would like to show you some of my flying bird drawings.

Flying Osprey

Watch this video on Youtube

This flying osprey was drawn for Alexa Pulitzer LLC - personal stationery manufacturer

Flying Ducks

This duck is another design for Alexa Pulitzer LLC

This duck was drawn for a t-shirts produced by Fowlaholic

Flying Canada Goose

This Canada goose was drawn as a t-shirt design for Feet Down Designs

How Google’s Webspam Team Works (Featuring Matt Cutts)

2013-06-07T14:19:00.001-07:00

It’s unlikely that anybody who visits my blogs knows who Matt Cutts is. I myself was unaware of the man till recently. But in fact Matt is a very useful man who works as the head of Google's Webspam team which goal is to protect all us, users of the World Wide Web, from an annoying and sometimes even dangerous spam. But let me tell you why I am writing about him here.

Challenging the Power of the Internet

So I have a good fried who works as a translator, copywriter and SEO (search engine optimizer) and who helps me a lot with promoting my business online. He never stops talking about the outstanding power of the Internet in the matter of getting any message to the world and reaching out to influencers of any industry. According to my friend the only thing needed to attract attention even of the biggest guys is the content that would appeal to them. And so I asked him who were the influencers of the industry HE worked in and whether I could reach out to them with MY content and with the help of the almighty Internet. I learned then a few names from my friend including Matt Cutts who seemed to be Zeus for SEO’s.

Matt Cutts fighting spam with his "team"

So the challenge for me as an artist was to create an image that would be shared in the World Wide Web and eventually be seen by Matt Cutts. And hopefully this image would be appealing enough for Matt so that he would be willing to leave his comment below the post. I have come up with this cartoon showing Matt Cutts fighting spam with a penguin and a panda (as I learnt from my friend, Penguin and Panda were the codenames of the latest Google’s search engine updates aimed at reducing spam and offering a better search experience for all Google users). The idea was to depict Matt driving a vehicle which would remind the word “Google”.

Well, let’s hope it won’t take too long for Matt Cutts to see this cartoon and comment here. I also hope I’ll be able to tell apart real Matt Cutts from false ones that may want to comment as well.

Update: Matt replied me in Twitter within 10 minutes (!) after this post was published. I am now totally convinced of the outstanding power of the Internet!

Matt Cutts replied me in a moment after this blog post was published

Portrait of a Ukrainian Girl

2013-04-25T12:36:00.002-07:00

This is not for the first time that I create portraits of Ukrainian women. Being a Ukrainian artist, I am sometimes contacted by people from abroad who ask me to draw gift portraits of their Ukrainians wives, girlfriends or acquaintances. You can see some examples of such portraits on this blog too. There is an artwork ordered by an Italian guy who wanted me to create a portrait of his Ukrainian wife as an elf princess and another portrait created for an American man’s girlfriend living in Ukraine. This time, when a guy from Moscow asked me to create a portrait of his friend from Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, I thought why not to use this commission to show a little bit of Ukrainian culture to the world. So I made a video showing my work in progress and added a beautiful piece of Ukrainian music as a soundtrack to the video. And here are the results of my work. Hopefully, you will enjoy some Ukrainian spirit in this artwork.

Ukrainian girl portrait

Watch this video on Youtube

Portrait of Young Michael Caine

2013-01-05T11:25:00.000-08:00

I remember watching Michael Caine movies when I was very young. It may be that these souvenirs of youth made me want to draw a portrait of this well-known actor. Or may be I was charmed with the fact that Michael Caine will be 80 years old in 2013 and he still looks good and active.

Young Michael Caine wearing his signature hipster glasses

He still acts in many films. Michael Caine’s face looks rather attractive from artist’s perspective. Although he was born in a poor family, he has that peculiar British nobility in his appearance. Michael has a beautiful family and despite his solid age he even mastered Twitter. This active gentleman seems to have that irresistible aura that has inspired me to draw his portrait. So I found a picture of young Michael Caine that had been taken a year before my birthday and I used it as a reference for the portrait. Furthermore, this picture shows Michael wearing his famous hipster glasses; therefore I wanted to include this cool accessory into the portrait. I also learned from the Internet that one of Michael Caine’s favorite songs was “My Way” by Frank Sinatra. That’s why I decided that this great piece of music should be the soundtrack for my video showing the portrait creation process. I believe this song indeed perfectly fits a mature man who lived a long life of success. I hope Michael Caine himself will find this portrait and share his thoughts about it in the comment section below (well, I know it sounds almost impossible, but it doesn't hurt to dream).

Watch this video on Youtube

P.S. many people ask me what kind of pen I use for my artworks. For this portrait of Michael Caine I utilized one of my most appreciated drawing tools – a Pilot Birdie fountain pen.

Expanding My Team to Create Professional Vector Art

2013-01-04T10:28:00.000-08:00

I started my career as a graphic artist with illustrations for archaeological digs in Crimea. I have been creating freehand artworks for a significant part of my life and even today, when artist’s business requires mastering graphic editing software such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, I still gravitate to old school hand-made drawing. The majority of people start learning to draw or paint in a traditional way using conventional art tools such as paper and brushes or pencils. Doing so is natural. That’s why lots of old-schoolers proved to be unprepared for the digital era when all kinds of artworks can and sometimes must be created with the aid of special software and hardware like graphic tablets. I was lucky enough to have had the opportunity to learn how to utilize Adobe Photoshop to edit, outline or color my freehand sketches in order to turn them into digital pictures as well as how to work with Adobe Illustrator to create infinitely scalable vector images that are indispensable for many purposes dictated by technology advances of the twenty-first century.

In this blog you can find a few articles about projects which suggested applying my modest skills of creating vector images, for example, posts about the motocross vector illustrations, the panda mascot, and the posters for a chiropractor. However, when it comes to large projects involving vector graphics, I feel that my vector art skills are not strong enough for me to be able to offer my clients fast delivery and top-notch quality of images compared to artists whose major specialty is vector graphics. Therefore I decided to ask my former colleague to join me and become my associate in creating vector art for my customers who approach me with their big vector art projects. Her name is Natalia Busayeva. We used to work together for a web design and development agency, but today we both are freelance artists living in the same city. Natalia has acquired solid Adobe Illustrator skills which is exactly what I need to compensate for my lack of experience with vector graphics and meet my customers’ most challenging demands.

Our First Project Together: Vector Images Related to Sports and Hobbies

The first project Natalia worked on under the brand of Igor Lukyanov’s Artistic Studio was a series of vector pictures related to sports and hobbies. They were created for Split P Studio, LLC (owner of the "FunnyLuggageTags" trade mark) – my old client for whom I created custom drawings for the vintage-fashion-inspired luggage tags. These images were also purposed for a collection of luggage tags. As you can see from images below, vector art created by Natalia has a professional flair, even though I showed them in low resolution and they look not at their best here.

Male mountain biking

Female mountain biking

Fly fishing

Male mountain climbing

Female mountain climbing

Mountain hiking 1

Mountain hiking 2

Jogging in the city

Jogging in nature

Golf

Snowboarding

Mountain skiing

I hope you love this demonstration of my team’s abilities to create high-class vector art. So if you ever need custom vector illustrations of top quality you are welcome to contact me and I’ll make sure that your needs are met in the most professional manner.

Slow Loris – Endangered Cuteness

2012-12-16T10:11:00.003-08:00

Slow lorises and slender lorises are cute animals but their cuteness has put them on the brink of extinction. Many people do not understand that slow lorises are not like kittens or puppies and having them as pets is actually dangerous for their health and even for the very existence of the entire population of these primates.

Slow loris - endangered because cute

Cute pets are popular on the Internet. So I decided to leverage the power of cuteness and promote the idea of preserving the wildlife by making a call through my art for abstaining from human’s fads which do nothing but put innocent animals in peril and physical suffering. Slow lorises undergo a painful untoothing procedure which suggests cutting out or pulling up to 8 of their teeth before delivering them as pets. This awful operation is often done with simple nail clippers and in many cases it causes lethal infection or blood loss, not to mention an excruciating pain the animals experience.

Watch this video on Youtube

I really hope that someone looking to buy a slow loris as a pet will get to this page and change his/her mind after reading this article. It is important to make the demand for pet lorises decrease by raising people's awareness of this species endangerment and tortures. That’s why I’ve made this drawing of a cute slow loris. Hopefully, this image will attract some visitors to this page and those who wish to adopt a loris as an exotic pet will shift their focus to less endangered animals or traditional pets such as cats, dogs, hamsters etc.

You’d Better Purchase a Hi-Res Image than a Real Slow Loris

Slow lorises’ cuteness creates a truly insatiable desire in lots of people for keeping one of these living cartoons at home as a pet. Many of those who set off to buy a slow loris are probably not aware of the harm they are causing these long-suffering creatures by keeping them locked in their houses and thus helping boost the illegal pet trade. I know it may seem a poor substitution but I strongly recommend that you’d better purchase my drawing of a cute slow loris than a real one. So why it’s better to buy the high resolution image for those who love slow lorises and would like to express their love by protecting them rather than supporting pet smugglers’ cruel business with their money?

You can print out this drawing and hang it on a wall to always get amused with the slow loris’ cuteness without paying for harming and torturing it;
You will be able to tell more about the slow loris endangerment to your friends and relatives who will see this cool drawing in your place;
You can print this high resolution royalty free image on a t-shirt or publish it on a website or a magazine to let the wide public know about the endangered species issue:

You can print the image on a t-shirt to let people know about the problem of slow loris endangerment.

You will support my social work in creating drawings to address people from all over the world with the problem of endangered animals.

I have a few special ideas of artworks dedicated to the endangered species issues. Unfortunately, I cannot focus on social projects too often as I have to work on paid commissions to be able to pay my bills and feed the family. If people buy my animal drawings, they will help create a budget necessary for me to spend more time on my wildlife protection initiative without having to worry too much about money.

Buy my drawing of a slow loris in high resolution. Click this link. The price is only $15.

Raised so far: $15

Portrait of Stephen Alonzo Jackson and Other Artworks for Frats

2012-09-25T09:08:00.001-07:00

Making t-shirts with custom designs for college fraternities is another idea of Buffalo Jackson’s management purposed to satisfy their young male customers who gravitate towards classic masculine values in fashion opposing today’s fashion trends aggressively promoting men with metrosexual and sleek appearance. A portrait of Stephen Alonzo Jackson was the first artwork created by me for Buffalo Jackson Trading Co’s new series of frat t-shirts.

I never knew about Stephen Alonzo Jackson until Buffalo Jackson commissioned me to create his portrait. Due to this company I learn a lot of things about the United States history. And I am now aware of Stephen Alonzo Jackson being one of the most important men for the Kappa Sigma fraternity as he managed to transform Kappa Sig from a struggling local fraternity at the University of Virginia into a strong international Brotherhood.

Stephen Alonzo Jackson is possibly the most important man in the history of the Kappa Sigma fraternity

I actually love the idea of college fraternities and sororities which we do not have in my country. I believe it feels good to belong to a community, a club which only people sharing the same traditions and common virtues can join. It must be nice to feel the team spirit which helps people withstand competition and encourage support for those brothers in need and troubles. College fraternities and sororities seem to be a powerful institutions making students’ life even more exciting and saturated with positive experience.

Watch this video on Youtube

No wonder Buffalo Jackson Trading Co. appeals to college fraternities when advocating their traditional rugged gentleman muscularity expressed in lifestyle and fashion. A lot of fraternity members are prone to respect traditions of past generations and, being conservatives, they are less easily enticed into new fashion trends shifting far from a classic image of a man.

Other Artworks for Colledge Fraternities

The portrait of Stephen Alonzo Jackson is not the only artwork ordered by Buffalo Jackson Trading Co. for fraternities. I also made a few drawings featuring frat crests and badges. You can see some examples below:

Robert Adger Smythe for Pi Kappa Alpha

Theta Chi crest

Sigma Chi badge

Visual Scribing

2012-09-11T14:19:00.002-07:00

My first graphic facilitation commission has not remained unnoticed. Shortly after I had published my blog post about graphic facilitation I was contacted by a representative of CipherEx (a computer consulting services company that designs, models, tests, and builds secure networks) who asked me to create an entire series of graphic facilitation videos to visually capture some important office and network security rules for their customers to remember. The guy who contacted me called this work visual scribing and I think this term, indeed, suits the visual facilitation process which suggests no live drawing. So, from now on I’ll call this kind of work visual scribing or simply scribing.

My new visual scribing commission suggested drawing with an invisible hand

The main challenge in the CipherEx’s assignment was that the customer wanted the drawing hand to be invisible in the final video. I knew that it could be done with some iPad applications which make it possible to record the drawing process through a stylus. However, taking into consideration more important needs, purchasing an iPad was not an option. It took some time to develop my method of the “invisible hand” visual scribing with the equipment available to me at that time. While honing the method I managed to complete the first video of the series in September 2012. And the customer was happy with the result. I’ve got customer’s permission to share this video, so you can watch it below:

Visual Scribing: Security Around the Office

Watch this video on Youtube

Astronaut Reading a Book

2012-07-19T13:50:00.001-07:00

The drawing of an astronaut reading a book was my first commission from Skip N' Whistle – a company offering eco-friendly screen printed t-shirts in New Orleans, USA. The company is known for its great selection of fun and clever t-shirt designs.

I was asked to draw a spaceman sitting down with his legs crossed and reading a book

One of the reasons why I was contacted by a representative of this company was that guys from Skip N' Whistle were not quite happy with hard edge vector clipart that so many people used to translate their design ideas into drawings. And I cannot but agree that freehand drawings have so much more soul and life than those made with Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator or any other computer-based graphic editor. There is nothing better than a hand-made work totally created by human mind and hands. Hopefully, customers of Skip N' Whistle will appreciate future hand-made designs of their t-shirts. I believe there will be plenty of popular Skip N' Whistle designs re-made into freehand drawings by me and/or other artists because it seems that managers of the company are ready to go for it.

Watch this video on Youtube

Another reason I was hired to create the drawing for a t-shirt from Skip N' Whistle was my distinctive drawing style of hatching and cross-hatching making my artworks look somewhat vintage. Skip N' Whistle’s t-shirts and accessories feature a lot of vintage-inspired designs and guys from the company believed that it would be cool to make custom designs while keeping that so popular vintage vibe.

AD ZONE: Read books, watch videos, have fun

Unfortunately, I do not know the exact meaning of this drawing of a reading spaceman but the design looks fun which means that Skip N' Whistle is likely to find a lot of buyers for t-shirts featuring an astronaut with a book.

Custom Bookmarks

2012-06-05T11:58:00.000-07:00

There was a woman from the United States named Kat who asked me to create custom bookmarks for her to use them for her new blog promotion while attending a book convention. Kat is crazy about books and she shares her passion for books on her blog called The Book Tart. Kat wanted two customized bookmarks featuring a reading woman. The woman on the drawing was supposed to look like Kat and be seductive to support her motto – "Reading is Sexy". Well, you have to go an extra mile to revert people back to reading books today and if you are an attractive woman it is easier to do that. I also love those wise phrases she wanted to place on the bookmarks: "Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy books, and that's kind of the same thing" and "I have more books than clothes or shoes – combined".

So I am writing this post to show you how those custom bookmarks look like. The drawings were created on the basis of reference photos and descriptions provided by Kat (including her desire to add some vintage girl vibe to the drawings). These bookmarks are another example of highly customized artworks I can create for personal and business purposes. I can handle the most advanced customization requests as there is nothing that can be more customized than illustrations featuring characters with the portrait similarity to any person. If you are for the fist time on my blog, please, feel free to check some portraits created by me to see what I can offer when highly customized art is needed.

Elephant Drawing

2012-06-01T11:25:00.000-07:00

A drawing of an elephant had been created as another template for political t-shirts from Buffalo Jackson Trading Co. just like the donkey drawing I wrote a few posts ago. An elephant and a donkey were drawn for t-shirts featuring symbols of two major American parties – Republicans (elephant) and Democrats (donkey).

Elephant drawing for Buffalo Jackson Trading Co.

This is how the Republican Elephant t-shirt from Buffalo Jackson Trading Co. looks like

And again I won’t delve into politics of the United States of America in this post because I know nothing about it. All I know is that it seems that the majority of customers of Buffalo Jackson Trading Co. supports the Republican Party and welcomed t-shirts with the elephant while booing t-shirts featuring the Democratic donkey. However the guys from Buffalo Jackson Trading Co. wanted to be fair and spent their time and money to make t-shirts for the Republican Party supporters as well. But anyway I simply wanted to show you the elephant drawing here without politics involved.

Watch this video on Youtube

Related posts:
Lion drawing
American wildlife art

Robert E. Lee on His Horse

2012-05-24T13:14:00.000-07:00

I keep on telling you about artworks commissioned by Buffalo Jackson Trading Co. (ex Buffalo and Company). And today’s artwork features General Robert E. Lee – a commander of the armed forces of the Confederate States of America. This is second time that I create a drawing featuring Robert E. Lee for this company but this time the drawing depicts Robert E. Lee on his horse called Traveller. The drawing is based on a well-known photo taken during the American Civil War.

General Robert E. Lee on his horse Traveller

This drawing is based on the famous photo of Lee and his horse

I believe that the idea to add the Lee’s horse design to the collection of t-shirts from Buffalo Jackson Trading Co. was prompted to guys from the company by the General’s letter to his wife’s cousin, Markie Williams, who wanted to paint a portrait of Traveller. The letter went like this:

If I was an artist like you, I would draw a true picture of Traveller; representing his fine proportions, muscular figure, deep chest, short back, strong haunches, flat legs, small head, broad forehead, delicate ears, quick eye, small feet, and black mane and tail. Such a picture would inspire a poet, whose genius could then depict his worth, and describe his endurance of toil, hunger, thirst, heat and cold; and the dangers and suffering through which he has passed. He could dilate upon his sagacity and affection, and his invariable response to every wish of his rider. He might even imagine his thoughts through the long night-marches and days of the battle through which he has passed. But I am no artist Markie, and can therefore only say he is a Confederate gray.

I can feel from the letter that Robert E. Lee loved his war horse as a dear and faithful friend. In those times of war a solder’s horse must have been his most precious friend asking only for a little bit of love and care to be able to give up life for the sake of his master. No wonder Robert E. Lee loved his horse and appreciated all the good qualities of Traveller which must have saved his life in battles many times.

This is how the drawing looks on a t-shirt from Buffalo Jackson Trading Co.

Another pleasant surprise for me in the story of Robert E. Lee was the fact that his merits are never forgotten despite his being a representative of the so-called Lost Cause. His name is remembered and his deeds and wisdom are honored and respected. A lot of people, even outside the USA, call him a hero. It is surprising to me because a Civil War also happened on the territory of my country a century ago. Names of quite a lot of decent people who had lost this war were completely forgotten and even now when truth is beginning to emerge many great personalities killed in that war are only known to those who has special interest in history. When I think that Robert E. Lee’s horse is more honored in the United States of America than some great representatives of my nation in my country I feel sad, but at the same time I cannot but feel happy for American people who have been protecting their freedom for centuries and have been cherishing it as one of their greatest values.

Watch this video on Youtube

Testing My Wacom Inkling

2012-05-10T11:47:00.000-07:00

I keep on testing my newly purchased Wacom Inkling device. I still have no idea how I can use it with my drawing style which seems to be too hard for Wacom Inkling to render it properly and accurately. At least I can make videos like the one shown below. The video demonstrates the time-lapse speed drawing of a woman portrait alongside with a screen showing how the drawing on paper is being transferred to the computer by means of the device. If you happen to miss it, you can read my recent Wacom Inkling review where I shared my first impression of Wacom Inkling.

Watch this video on Youtube

Donkey Drawing

2012-05-05T13:22:00.002-07:00

You might already know from my previous posts that Buffalo and Co. (one of my biggest customers) is in the process of re-branding into Buffalo Jackson Trading Co. For that reason the company is about to introduce a whole range of new t-shirts for which quite a number of drawings have been created by me. Among those new t-shirts to be soon released by Buffalo Jackson Trading Co. will be a few related to politics and in particular those featuring symbols of two modern US parties – the Democratic donkey and the Republican elephant.

Donkey drawing for Buffalo Jackson Trading Co.

This is how the Democratic Donkey t-shirt from Buffalo Jackson Trading Co. looks like

In this post I won’t talk about American political parties as I am not competent enough to discuss how good or bad they are for USA citizens as I do not belong to them. I only want to show you the image of a donkey merely as another drawing of an animal created by me.

Watch this video on Youtube

Related posts:
Horse drawing
Drawing of a lion
American wild animals

Portrait of Grandmother with Chevrolet Bel Air

2012-05-01T14:22:00.001-07:00

This post is about my recent portrait featuring a woman and a Chevrolet Bel Air. This portrait was drawn from old photographs assumingly taken in early 50's. The person featured in the portrait is the grandmother of the woman named Jen who commissioned me to create this artwork as an original gift for her mother for the upcoming Mother’s Day.

The portrait of the grandmother was drawn from old photographs

The younger generation is luckier than our parents and older ancestors when it comes to preserving time and memory of their loved ones. Today almost anyone can make and share hundreds of photos and videos of decent quality without having to visit specialized studios and even enable real-time remote communication with his or her mother using free Internet tools when she is far away. Our parents had not all those technological benefits we enjoy today living in the digital age. Very often our parents have to content themselves with a few poor quality photos of their fathers and mothers. It’s pity those photos oftentimes do not look good enough to be hung on a wall or be displayed in a conspicuous place.

The custom gift for Mother’s Day – the grandma portrait with a Chevy car

That's the reason why Jen has chosen a portrait of her grandma as a surprise gift for her mom who apparently had only a few old and faded b&w photos of her mother.

The monochrome version of the grandma’s portrait

The color version of the grandma’s portrait

I personally think this portrait is a good, creative and touching idea for the Mother’s Day gift. Jen wanted the portrait to have a vintage vibe and reflect the spirit of 1950s when her grandmother was enjoying her young years. She suggested introducing a vintage Chevrolet car to the portrait to support this retro portrait idea. To my surprise when I asked her to choose between two drawing styles for the portrait – drawing with color pencils and pen brushes (a kind of imitation of the traditional vintage drawing style) and black and white drawing with brushes and pen & ink using the hatching technique – she chose the latter option as she believed that the black and white hatching would give the portrait a very peculiar retro look. Well, I tried my best to impart the vintage vibe to the drawing and to adapt my hatching technique to the desired result. I also created a few color versions of the digital image of the portrait to add more retro appearance to the artwork. I hope that Jen's mother will appreciate the gift, and a large and good-looking portrait of the beloved mother and grandmother will find its place of honor in a conspicuous place of the happy family’s house to always remind them the person whose loving care can never be forgotten and underappreciated.

Watch this video on Youtube

Wacom Inkling Review

2012-04-23T11:06:00.001-07:00

After having been waiting for Wacom Inkling for quite a long time, I was very much excited to finally get my hands on this coveted device. So, now when I have purchased it, I can write a short review and share my first impression of Wacom Inkling. I must say that I am a big fan of Wacom products as I’ve got accustomed to the quality and performance of their graphic tablets (I am currently using a Wacom Intuos 4 drawing tablet and I am satisfied with what it can offer for facilitating my life as an artist).

When I first learned about Wacom Inkling from their ad I thought this device would definitely improve the quality and productivity of my work, so I was glad to pay extra to get the Inkling device as soon as possible. I was sure that Wacom Inkling was exactly what I wanted and needed for my job as an artist.

The Wacom Inkling ad which has grabbed my attention and nudged to buy the device

From the first grasp on the Inkling pen, I felt the outstanding quality and style peculiar to Wacom. I’ve got accustomed to this quality over the years of working with traditional drawing tablets from Wacom.

But it came the time to proceed with the test of my newly purchased Wacom Inkling. Having made a few simple line drawings, I felt that the pen grip is rather comfortable to use, though somewhat thick in comparison with a conventional ballpoint pen. However, working with the Wacom Intuos 4 pen which looks similar to Inkling’s, I did not feel much discomfort. The case material is pleasant to touch and the pen is easy to hold and control in the hand. I should mention a high quality of the pen tip which does not stain the paper and allows controlling the line thickness at a certain level of drawing skills. What is unpleasant is that the pen tip is somewhat loose and each time I touch the paper with the pen I feel this freaking looseness and a clicking sound. But may be it’s the case only with my device.

AD ZONE: Wacom Inkling on Amazon

However, after I had checked the results of my first drawings rendered by my Wacom Inkling, I was somewhat disappointed. What I saw on the computer was very different from what I had drawn on paper. Lines positions were shifted a few millimeters relative to each other which was enough for the drawing to look inaccurate; some lines were missing at all. After more thorough reviewing of the recommendations on setting up and proper operation of the pen, I found no improvements.

As a test, I made a more complicated drawing on an A4 sheet of paper with a lot of strokes using my favorite drawing style. The result was not reassuring for me.

A more complecated sketch I created to test my Wacom Inkling

As can be seen from images below a lot of lines rendered by Wacom Inkling are off and the final drawing is far from being accurate. Here are images showing how the drawing looks like when exported into Adobe Illustrator.

The original sketch compared to the Wacom Inkling rendering

Maybe I'm doing something wrong and someone could suggest me how I can remedy the situation with Wacom Inkling being so inaccurate.

As you can see a lot of lines are off as a result of Wacom Inkling rendering

All that being said, I can summarize by warning people who want to use Wacom Inkling for something more that creating quick and rough sketches to be edited and processed on the computer. The tool is not suitable for completed artworks or drawings which style requires accurate lines. Nothing but sketches for now… A great advantage of the device is its portability and small size. Also it should be mentioned that Wacom Inkling allows creating vector images directly from hand drawings “on the fly”. The ability to draw in layers helps avoid mistakes or at least allows making easier corrections with graphic editing software.

Another Wacom Inkling test

Sure, Wacom Inkling will find many fans among digital artists, graphic designers etc. However this device proved to be a disappointment for me as it seemed to be useless for my drawing style. I remain committed to my traditional Wacom tablet (which is great) and a scanner. I want to thank you the Wacom company though for their hard work in making my dreams come true, albeit this time they did not meet my expectations I still believe that Wacom will improve the Inkling technology soon to make the digital pen more precise and suitable for more complicated drawings rather than raw sketches.

Having wasted $300 for a Wacom Inkling and being absolutely disappointed with its performance I am still a big fan of what Wacom is doing in the domain of digital arts tools as I do not know if there is a brand which can offer something better than Wacom can.

Arabian Horse Drawing

2012-04-12T08:10:00.001-07:00

The drawing of a horse was the key drawing in the series of animal artworks commissioned by Avid Design for the Exmoor White Horse Inn. First of all, the very name of the place contains the “horse” word and it imposes a high responsibility on me as an artist. Secondly, the Exmoor White Horse Inn has a really big equestrian area with too many guests who know a lot of things about horses, and since my horse drawing was to be featured on a panel over the bar it needed to be “bang on” for even horse experts to love it at once. It was a challenging task and I had had to make three drawings before the image of an Arabian horse was approved.

Arabian horse drawing for the Exmoor White Horse Inn

At the Exmoor White Horse Inn there are a lot of horses used also for hunting. I was actually hired for this project because guys from Avid Design had found the blog post featuring my hunting and fishing drawings. No wonder the hotel offering a package of activities comprising equestrian sport and hunting with horses keeps Arabian horses. Not only Arabs are the most beautiful representatives of the horse family, they are also good for trail or pleasure due to their great stamina and ability to run all day long which is just what it's needed for places like hotels visited by a lot of guests wishing to experience the joy of riding a horse. Thus my drawing was to feature an Arabian horse and of course the horse needed to be white to correspond the name of the inn.

Watch this video on Youtube

I would like to inform those my readers who have not yet viewed my previous posts on this project that this is the last blog post about my animal drawings series created for the Exmoor White Horse Inn located in Great Britain. This project includes five graphite pencil drawings featuring a trout, a pheasant, a wild goose, a deer and a horse.

Related posts:
Drawing of a donkey
General Lee's horse