Zachary

This is Zachary. He is one of my cousins in Texas. This portrait was done from a photo taken a few years ago. 

18x24 watercolor and pencil. #129

Doreen

This is Doreen. She's an artist friend. I studied oil painting with her a few years ago.

I'm sneaking her in as 2014 is almost over and I promised 5 friends earlier this year that I would give them a piece of art in 2014. At the end of this project I will give them their actual portraits (if they want them) but for now the gift is digital.

5x9 watercolor and pencil. #128

LeeAnne

This is LeeAnne. She's a sister of my first real girlfriend. She lives in Austin now and goes by the name of LeeAnne (her real name) but I will always know her as Bobbie.

12x16 pencil and watercolor. #127

Lily

This is Lily.She is cool and quirky and has a dog named Shadow. She's a photographer.

8x10 watercolor, pencil and Artrage. #126

Marc

This is Marc. He is an urban sketching friend and he lives in Montreal. A couple of years ago, Alex and I went to an Urban Sketching symposium in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and took a class he was teaching called "Tea, Milk, and Honey". It is a great way to think about making a watercolor painting. First you start with a light wash that has the consistency of tea - lots of water and a little bit of color. Then you paint in your main shapes with more color and less water - about the consistency of milk. Then you add in the final touches and highlights with even less water and more color with a mixture that is thicker - kind of like honey. Assuming you have a good drawing, this technique works really well!

He recently published book chock full of lots of great sketching ideas called "The Urban Sketcher: Techniques for Seeing and Drawing on Location". It has 4.5 stars on Amazon.

12"x16" pencil and watercolor. #125

Orling

This is Orling's niece. Orling is an urban sketching friend living in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. This sketch is from a photo of her niece. The quote is one of Orling's favorites.

11"x13" pencil and Artrage.

Lisa

This is Lisa. Once upon a time we worked together in the same architectural design studio. She always came up with spectacular interior designs. She's also an artist and a very lovely person.

8"x10.5" watercolor and pencil. #124

Kari Kate

This is Kari Kate. She's my cousin and lives in Texas. 

This portrait really surprised me. I think I need to go to therapy and figure out why I do these things. When I was a kid I would doodle. I had a black pen and a whole bunch of Mr. Sketch scented markers. I loved those markers. I would color with pink just to smell the watermelon. Doing this portrait reminded me of those days when I would get lost in my imagination and just keep building on the thing I had done before.

I think this portrait would look good on a label for a bottle of hard lemonade. I would call it "Sassy Girl".

8"x10.5" Pen, ink, and watercolor. #123

Bonnie

This is Bonnie. I totally missed getting her likeness but this sketch does capture a bit of her adventurous spirit. 

We met on a group tour to Thailand a few years ago. My favorite memory of her was getting a Thai Massage and facial with her somewhere way off the beaten path in the jungles near Chang Mai. We have this great picture her husband took of us with green goop on our faces grinning from ear to ear.

17"x10" watercolor pencil and ink in my grand portrait sketchbook.

Jeff

This is Jeff. We grew up together in Houston and we were roommates in college. He and his sister are the friends I have known the longest in my life.

Painting him was a real trip down memory lane for me. We weren't just friends growing up - we were more like brothers. So there are a lot of memories and connections with him.

Tia

This is Tia. She is an urban sketching friend living in Singapore. This is another one sided collaborative portrait - like the one I did of James a month or so ago. The background sketch is all Tia's work. She has a wonderful ability to accurately draw architecture and perspective and then surround it with loose and luscious color.

8"x10.5" pencil, pen and watercolor with Artrage to blend the two images. #120

Nancy

This is Nancy. She's married to one of my best friends. It's cool when your friends marry someone and then you like them even more than you did before they were with that person. That doesn't always happen. Nancy is my friend's perfect complement.

16"x10.5" pencil, ink and watercolor in my grand portrait sketchbook.

12.13.14

Caleb

This is Caleb. In my architectural work I often specify Marvin Windows and Caleb is the representative in this area that I work with. He is great at his job and always gets the orders right - down to the last detail. 

He is also an art collector and I hope to have a piece in his collection someday.

8"x8" Pencil on watercolor paper. #118

Lorenzo

This is Lorenzo. He is an owner of Bio Bio Worldwide Expeditions. I met him a couple of years on a rafting trip down the Futaleufu river in southern Chile. He's something of a renaissance man - yoga teacher, chef, kayaking and rafting expert, builder and a super nice guy all rolled up into this rugged and handsome package that can speak 3 languages.

8"x10" Oil on paper. #117

Carmen

This is Carmen. She is a structural engineer and has helped me out on a few architectural projects. She is, by far, the most beautiful structural engineer I have worked with.

8"x10.5" pencil and watercolor in my Grand Portrait Sketchbook.

Paul

This is Paul. He's about six and a half feet tall and lives in an awesome old house in a neighboring town that he and his wife have made into a fantastic home. A few years ago he started making really cool concrete counter tops and waterfalls. He's an artist. 

8"x10.5" pencil and watercolor in my Grand Portrait Sketchbook. #115

Shiem

This is Shiem. He is an urban sketching friend living in Barcelona, Spain.

8"x10.5" pencil and watercolor. #114

Carlos

This is Carlos. One of my very best friends. We've known each other since we were about 12 years old. We were roommates in college and we continue to get together a couple of times of year even though he lives down in North Carolina. Guitars and road bikes have been a common thread in our relationship over the years.

Ever since I experimented with gunpowder a couple of months ago - when I scorched Eileen's eyebrows - I've been wanting to do a pure gunpowder portrait. I had high hopes for this one and spent quite a bit of time on it but the result is somewhat disappointing to me. It's also a fairly risky activity drawing with fire so this one may be my last for awhile.

14"x20" Gunpowder and graphite on 3/4" Birch Plywood. #113

Colin

This is Colin. He's a rock star painter. I took a weekend plein air class with him a couple of years ago. As luck would have it, it rained the entire weekend but Colin handled it like a pro and managed to make it fun and interesting. I remember he made us breathe between each brushstroke and count each brushstroke demanding low numbers. Quite the taskmaster.

16"x10.5" watercolor and pencil in my Grand Portrait Sketchbook. #112

Jenn

This is Jenn. She's a wine expert so this portrait seemed to fit. She also loves dogs, horses, boating and living life to its fullest. Cheers!

9"x16" watercolor, pencil and Artrage.

Ronda and Grazalema

The last part of our trip to Spain was a bike trip through the mountains of Andalucia near Ronda and Grazalema. Here are a few sketches from that part of the trip.

Noah

This was a quick sketch of Noah carving the turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. I printed it out and gave it to him this morning with a birthday gift at brunch at the Burke's house.

Seville

In Seville, I met up with fellow urban sketchers JoseMaria Lerdo de Tejada,Alfonso Garcia Garcia, and Deborah Ordonez Torres and spent an afternoon walking, sketching, drinking cervezas and eating tapas.

Alhambra

Two sketches from our recent trip to Spain. These are from Granada where we visited the Alhambra.

Kalina

This is Kalina. She is an urban sketching friend and she lives in Portland, Oregon.

Jill

This is Jill. She's an amazing, prolific and passionate artist, enjoys being outdoors and living in Maine, has a great sense of humor, throws the best Halloween parties, and she loves dogs - especially Great Danes. That's Jill in a nutshell.

16"x10" watercolor and pencil in my Grand Portrait Sketchbook. #109

Liza - runner up version

This one didn't make the final cut but I like it.

Liza

This is Liza. She's my cousin and she lives in Houston.

11"x15" watercolor and pencil.

Sean

This is Sean. We used to run, swim and ride bikes together about 10 years ago. We teamed up several times with another friend to do adventure races and completed an Iron-man together in 2004. He lives in Portland now.

19"x7" watercolor, acrylic and Artrage. #107

Judith

This is Judith. She is an artist friend. 

12"x16" watercolor, ink and pencil. #106

Rich

This is Rich. We went to high school together. He recently celebrated a birthday. Happy birthday Rich!

8"x10" watercolor and pencil. #105

Annie

This is Annie. Dreamboat Annie - little ship of dreams...

I don't know why my mind works the way it does. I could not get this damn song out of my mind while I was drawing her so I just decided to write it around her. That's why it's there.

8"x10" watercolor, ink and pencil. #104

101

James

This is James. He is an urban sketching friend and he lives in London. He contacted me a couple of years ago to let me know he was writing a book on urban sketching and would like to include a few of my sketches in it. 
The book was published in December last year. It’s called “Sketch Your World”.

I sketched his portrait in my Handbook Grand Portrait sketchbook and then scanned it into my computer. Then I added the background digitally using one of James's sketches which I lifted from his blog. A sort of one-sided collaborative portrait.

8”x10” watercolor and pencil with a little Artrage.

Tom

This is Tom. This drawing makes him look harder than I think he actually is. I tried to soften him up but graphite stick is not only difficult to draw with but also hard to erase once it gets pushed in. So I went with it...

Anyway, Tom lives down in Owls Head and is an amazing woodworker.

18"x24" graphite and watercolor. #102

Jana

This is Jana. I first met her at Peopleplace, a cooperative preschool in our community. My first wife and I were attending the first parents meeting of the year and Jana was easily the most vocal parent there, making all sorts of suggestions for organic foods on the snack menu and ideas for making the playground safer. She was laugh out loud hilarious (still is). I remember turning to my wife, who was a whole foods chef, and telling her that we had to get to know her. We all became fast friends and spent many amazing times together with our children.

Over the past 15 years we have gone into and out of business with each other, seen each other through divorces and watched our babies grow into teenagers. These days we meet about once a month for breakfast to catch up on each others lives. She is a true blue friend.

8"x10" watercolor in my grand portrait sketchbook. #101

Eileen

This is Eileen. She lives in Rockport and has been a friend for many years. She is portrait #100 in The Portrait Project. A huge milestone. 

So yesterday I took a workshop at Waterfall Arts in Belfast with Mark Kelly on drawing with fire. Yes, you read that correctly. We experimented with matches, candles, gunpowder, and finally fireworks. We all had a blast - literally.

Anyway, I had this very loose watercolor portrait I had made of Eileen and so I decided to experiment with her and the gunpowder we were learning to draw with. Here I am in the process of deepening the value of her eyebrow. Crazy, right?

On the way home I stopped in at the Outdoor Sportsman in Northport and bought a couple of pounds of gunpowder for some future portraits I have in mind - can't wait.

8"x10" watercolor and gunpowder in my grand portrait sketchbook.

Daniel

This is Daniel. He is an urban sketching friend and he lives in Costa Rica.

8"x10" watercolor and pencil in my Grand Portrait Sketchbook. #99.

Wilda, Roz, and Mirt

This is Wilda, Roz, and Mirt. Wilda was my next door neighbor growing up in Houston. She was like a second mom to me. Roz is a painting friend. And Mirt is my sister-in-law. They don't all know each other. They just happened to come out of my friend jar in succession and I thought they went well together.

12"x20" watercolor and Nero lead. #96,97, and 98. A three-fer!

Marisol

This is Marisol. She is an urban sketching friend and she lives in Madrid.

9"x12" pencil and watercolor.

Miguel

This is Miguel. He is an urban sketching friend that I met in Santo Domingo a couple of years ago. He lives in Barcelona, Spain.

9"x12" watercolor and pencil with Artrage.

JoseMaria

This is JoseMaria. He is an urban sketching friend and he lives in Andalucia, Spain.

16"x20" pencil and watercolor.