Soft Pastel
Soft pastels are a drawing material that look like chalk sticks but have a much richer and more vibrant color. They blend together so smoothly that it gives the finished artwork a painted look. In fact, many pastel artists call their work a pastel painting rather than a drawing. Fine details are achieved with pastel pencils, which look like regular colored pencils, but they are much more chalky and blendable, just like the pastel sticks. The sticks and pencils are applied to a paper made specifically for them. This paper has a rough texture (called the “tooth”) that helps hold the pastel in place so that the fine particles don’t just fall right off — though they do still make quite a dusty mess all over my easel!
Island Flower
New Beginnings
Elephant Shimmer
Giraffe Pals
Refuge
Autumn Trail
Mixed Media
Fallen for Fall: A pumpkin and fall leaves hand-drawn with soft pastels, paired with text and a background that I illustrated digitally in Adobe Illustrator. Island Flower Remix: My hand-drawn pastel flower with the background removed and replaced in Photoshop with an photo of the pastel color gradient that I drew for this website. By the Seashore: A hand-drawn coastal scene comprised entirely of dots made with markers, with color added digitally in Photoshop.
Fallen for Fall
Island Flower Remix
By the Seashore
Oil Pastel
Oil pastels come in little sticks but are a different material than soft pastels. They are more rigid and waxy, almost like a richly pigmented crayon. The piece below is an oil pastel drawing of El Arco (“the arch”) in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
El Arco
Graphite
Just good ol’ fashioned pencil drawings. Happy Giraffe: One of the first drawings I did at the start of the pandemic, and it got me excited about drawing again. Penny: A portrait of my brother and sister-in-law’s golden retriever. Underwater World: I looked up several images of ocean plant life and referenced them to create my own scene, which I split into two pieces. The fish I chose are a nod to a particular movie…can you find out which one? Hand Study: In my first college drawing class, our semester-long assignment was to draw 15 hands and 15 feet by just looking at our own. This one was my favorite. Still Life: I set up an arrangement of a few items on a table in front of me and drew them.
Happy Giraffe
Penny
Underwater World
Hand Study
Still Life
Digital
I decided to try my hand at more kid-centric, whimsical illustration using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. This resulted in two projects that I expanded into multiple colorways: Owl’s Nest and Choose Adventure.
Owl’s Nest
Choose Adventure
Typography
These are drawings made from the words to songs by the Goo Goo Dolls, one of my favorite bands. All were created in Adobe Illustrator. Note: These are just fan art that I made for fun and are not for sale. All rights to these lyrics belong to the amazing writers.
Something For the Rest of Us
Stay With You
Black Balloon
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