Every so often I return to Brian Gallagher’s illustration blog, and I’m always captivated by his handling of buildings. I like how the rendering is actually fairly simple, but they really convey a lot of feeling to me. They are nicely designed and the values are great.
Category Archives: featured art
Russ McMullin – Owls, tree, and stars – progress and finish
My latest scratchboard is more illustrative than realistic.
For it I borrowed the basic design of an owl that my sister burned into a wooden spoon.
I wasn’t trying to achieve realism, but I wanted to include at least a hint of it. I started out by doing some sketches
And then I started refining:
Once I settled on the design, I transferred it to a 5×7 board with Chaco paper and red ballpoint pen:
For scratching I used a sharpened steel point that a friend made for me. It works great and has stayed sharp.
Initially the leaves were way too bright and competed with the owls for attention. I inked over them with a Faber Castell PITT artist pen brush, waited for them to dry, and re-scratched them. Even then they seemed too bright:
So, I pushed them back a little further with a diluted ink wash using Ampersand “black repair” that comes with their set of scratchbord inks:
The stars came last to give a background that wouldn’t compete with the owls. I’m feeling pretty good about the result. Now I’m trying to decide if I’m going to add some color.
Roadside lily in scratchboard
I was going to take some work-in-progress shots of this, and then got too focused on trying to finish. The reference comes from some huge lilies that were growing up the street a while back. The light coming through the pedals made me think it would be a good scratchboard subject. I would love to be done, but I can’t go any further tonight. So far I have about 5 hours in the rendering, maybe 6. The board is a 5×7 Ampersand and I used an Olfa art knife for the scratching.
I’ve got some ideas for a background, but I’m going to test them on another board first. It might be cool to scratch a background pattern and then knock it back a bit with the airbrush that’s been sitting idle, waiting to be experimented with. I hope to post the final by Saturday if all goes well.
UPDATE for Thursday night. Small edits:
Wednesday night:
If you show it, why not show it off?
Looking through online artist portfolios, it’s common to see small images that don’t give the viewer a full appreciation of the work. In those situations I find myself wondering why the artist chose to present the work so small.
To illustrate what I’m talking about, the same image is shown at two sizes below. The small one is good enough for a thumbnail, but it doesn’t have enough detail to give more than a general impression of the work. At the small size you don’t see any of the scratch patterns in the background. The large size is much more interesting. Though not big enough to use for a high-resolution print, it shows enough detail to give the viewer a better appreciation of the original.
My entries for the ISSA Exhibition
The International Society of Scratchboard Artists just happens to be having their 3rd Annual Juried Exhibition in the town where I live—Cary, North Carolina. The show starts Friday, June 27, and runs through the middle of August. It should be fun. I’m looking forward to meeting the other artists and admiring their work.
Two of my entries were accepted:
Jeff Gregory – And I saw a pale horse….
According to the site, this is digital scratchboard. It looks like the real thing. This image is part of a larger piece. I actually like the composition of the cropped close-up. 
Russ McMullin – Teddy at the Table
Another “just for fun” piece. This is based on a sketch I did a long time ago. It’s more of a conceptual still life than a story—an exercise in composition, light, and value. The rendering is pretty loose so it took me about 3 hours once my sketch was transferred to the 5×7 Ampersand board. I used a #16 X-acto blade for all the scratch work.
Russ McMullin – Church on Agave Hill
My work schedule has been brutal, but I finally found time to finish this piece. My opportunities to do illustration are few these days and this project is one I did for fun. The church is loosely based on one I saw and sketched. The location is plucked from my imagination. The board is 5×7 Ampersand. I used an Olfa 9153US AK-1/5B Standard Art Knife for the scratching. Once the image was transferred to the board it took approximately 4 hours to complete.
Prepare a sketch for scratchboard
With this sketch I took some inspiration from the architecture of a catholic church I passed while on a family outing. The church is tall, yet simple. My drawing doesn’t look much like the church, but it was what got me thinking about it.
The sketch is rendered in blue Papermate ballpoint, my favorite sketching medium. I tend to sketch on lined paper – something I’ve been scolded for. It’s a habit from school and a psychological crutch. I have proper sketchbooks, but generally do better work in lined notebooks because I don’t worry about the outcome.
The snake is not symbolic. It was already on the page when i started the church. The church sketch kept growing until the two ran together. When I pulled the image into Photoshop I erased the snake and cropped the image to a ratio of 5×7.
The bottom of the composition seemed too plain, and I thought it would be nice to have something in the foreground. With a new Photoshop layer and my Wacom tablet I added an agave plant, and played around with the clouds.
Nicolas Delort – A Rumor of Angels
I like the motion in this one.
