All the Abused
by Faith Te

Graphite Pencil Drawing on Arches Paper
Size: 18 x 13 cm (7″ x 5″)

All the Abused is a rock band from southern California. In mid-2009, they commissioned me to do a pencil drawing of a pair of eyes to use as the band’s logo. For reference, I used pictures of lead vocalist and guitarist, Sky Green, wearing her signature black eye.

Their latest CD album, released in January, is entitled “A Never Ending Story”. They sent me a copy so I took a few pictures. Here is one showing the CD along with their logo.

I like how all the songs in the album convey a message of peace. I am privileged that All the Abused asked me to do the artwork for the logo. Please visit their web site to learn more about All the Abused, to purchase their CD, listen to their songs, or to get in touch: http://alltheabused.com/. Here are a few more pictures:

I will be posting another commissioned drawing soon which I did also last year, so please stay tuned for that.

Faith

Robin
by Faith Te

Oil on Hardboard
Size: 25 x 20 cm (10″ x 8″)
SOLD

Here is a bigger oil painting I completed a few days ago. I painted this robin for James Parker’s painting/drawing challenge titled “For the Birds”. Please visit the Windows to the Words blog to learn more about the challenge.

I used my artistic license quite a bit here. I flipped the original reference photo so that the bird faces right. Also, I replaced his feet in the original with the ones from a WetCanvas photo by Dave Slaughter.

This kind of composition — an animal or a flower with its name by its side — was an idea I’ve wanted to try for a long time. At first, I thought the text would be difficult, but using a small brush and thinned paint made it quite easy to do.

I need to do a few more touch-ups on this painting because in some parts, the color of the background near the robin does not match the rest. But apart from that, I’m really pleased with it. I hope you like the “illustrative” style. I plan to make this a series and make some with flowers as well.

Thank you for looking.

Faith

Oil Portrait

Oil on Gessoed Bristol Board
Size: 28 x 36 cm (11″ x 14″)

Like David, I also joined the Different Strokes from Different Folks Year End Portrait Swap. The names of the artists we were to paint or draw were not revealed when we were given the pictures. I still don’t know whose portrait I painted but I do hope he will like it! The challenge was a lot of fun and I would love to participate again.

More about the oil painting…
I initially wanted to use charcoal, but I’ve been using oil paints a lot lately so I decided to do an oil portrait instead. This is just the third oil portrait I have completed so far. There are still a lot of areas which need to be improved, but overall, I am quite pleased with the result.

Oil Portrait Painting – Detail of Shirt
My favorite part in the whole painting would be the green “glow” on his shirt. I didn’t plan it beforehand but as I was adding highlights to the shirt, I felt that the bright green looked better just along the edges. So I softened it just a little and left it that way.

I also began practicing painting in layers lately as I usually paint alla prima (“finished in one session”). I think painting a portrait in layers gives the skin tones more “depth” and a more realistic and lifelike look.

In addition, I’d like to thank a good friend I recently met, Paul Brown. He has been very helpful and generous with his tips and that has given me a lot of confidence. If you haven’t already, do visit his web site and enjoy his super realistic paintings.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!

Faith

UPDATE: (January 2, 2010) The Portrait Swap has ended. Well, I may never know who I painted, but I woke up today to a truly big surprise — Karin Jurick painted my portrait! I was overwhelmed and very pleased! She also painted the other artists whose teammates weren’t able to reciprocate. My hats off to Ms. Jurick for doing what she did!

Portrait of Tammy
Medium: Graphite Pencil
Paper: Canson Grain
Size: 20 x 25 cm (8″ x 10″)

Faith and I have been neglecting this blog for sometime now. To start things rolling again, here’s a pencil portrait I did for Karin Jurick’s Different Strokes from Different Folks Year End Portrait Swap. The terms of the portrait swap was simple: participating artists sent pictures of themselves and, in turn, Ms. Jurick gave each artist a photo of another artist to draw or paint.

I was paired up with artist Tammy Hext. This lovely lady painted my portrait and I think she captured my character and personality perfectly.

Here’s a little behind the scenes look at the drawing I did of her. Before, I would usually take my time rendering a part of the face or skin with a pencil. This time, I used a flat brush dipped in a little graphite powder to lay down the first or basic layers of skin tone. Then, with the 2H Staedtler wood cased pencil, I laid down the second layer by making a chain of continuous diagonal strokes instead of the usual circular strokes. I blended it all together with a small piece of toilet paper. I hope you like it.

David

David and I recently launched the redesigned version of our web site, Artistic Realism. We have been working on and off on the new design for the past several months. It was a lot of fun to do but I am very relieved that it’s now finally finished and that we can actually see it work “live” . Apologies for blogging about it so late — there were some things which were not working properly with both the web site and the blog that we had to fix first.

One of the major changes in the web site is the new color theme. After testing it using many different color combinations, we eventually settled for lighter and softer colors which we hope helps focus more on the artwork.

Another change is that close-ups of the artworks now come in two sizes. We’ve added a medium-sized close-up so it will be easier to view the entire drawing at once without having to scroll. The larger images are still available though and may be viewed by clicking on the medium-sized ones.

In addition, we updated the site with some new drawings and paintings: 4 drawings in David’s gallery, 2 portraits in my pencil gallery, 2 in my pastels gallery, and 2 original artworks in the Art Store. I’ve made step-by-step demonstrations of two of my earlier works for the Drawing Board as well. They are: Portrait 2 and Portrait of Ron.

If you come across any broken links, links that point to the wrong pages, or grammar and spelling errors, we’d appreciate it very much if you let us know by sending us an e-mail. Also, if you have any suggestions on how to make the web site (or this blog!) more user-friendly, please let us know. We will seriously consider all your suggestions.

Thank you for looking. We hope you enjoy the new design! And we hope all of you have a great 2009 !

PS: To those who accessed the blog and found it gone the other day, we apologize for the inconvenience as we had to do a much-needed update on the blog software.

Faith

• Web Site: Artistic Realism Pencil Drawings

From Me to You
Medium: Graphite Pencil
Paper: Canson Grain
Size: 18 × 13 cm (7″ × 5″)

For the past two years, Faith had created the Christmas artworks for our site. But this year, I decided to produce one. The drawing is called “From Me to You” and it was drawn using graphite pencils. It features an angel figurine with a harp, ball ornaments, a gift, a greeting card and a bell, all of which are only some of the traditional things associated with the Christmas season.

I got the theme for the drawing from a thought I have about a “traditional Christmas” in which everybody is being merry and having a wonderful time.

I managed to save a few progress scans of the drawing and I have included them below.

From Faith and I, we wish you a joyful Christmas and may all your wishes come true for the coming year!

David

• Website: Artistic Realism Drawings

Coffee, Anyone?
Medium: Graphite Pencil
Paper: Canson Grain
Size: 25 × 20 cm (10″ × 8″)

I just uploaded a video in slideshow format of the above drawing on YouTube earlier this week. Here is the link: Coffee Anyone Slideshow.

Faith took the step-by-step stages from the “Coffee, Anyone?” progress page on the Drawing Board and turned it into a moving series of pictures. It’s the first “movie” we have ever done, so please let us know if you have any suggestions for improvement. We will try to make more slideshows of our drawings in the future and post them on YouTube as well.

The drawing “Coffee, Anyone?”, by the way, is the first piece in the “Coffee” series. The other two are called “Afternoon Break” and “Coffee and Table Napkin”. If you are interested in purchasing the original drawing, please let me know by sending me an e-mail: david@artisticrealism.com .

Have a great weekend!

David

• Website: Artistic Realism Drawings
• My YouTube channel: DavidTePencilArtist