Richard A. Kirk | Visual Artist | Author
"there is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion" Sir Frances Bacon, Of Beauty, Essays" 1625
I've been working in graphite for the last couple of weeks, playing with line and values. Graphite is wonderfully suited to working out visual ideas without distraction. These two pieces are quite small, but incorporate a lot of detail. The end result is not unlike my silverpoint work, probably due to my use of a... Continue Reading →
On Friday, I had the pleasure of attending the opening of Scared Stiff, a new spooky themed show at The Benz Gallery in my home town of London, Ontario. I contributed 4 pieces to the show. You can see an online version of the exhibit, and available works, by following the link above. It was... Continue Reading →
The Mad Butterfly's Ball is a new insect themed anthology of weird fiction and essays. About a year ago, I was commissioned to create a cover and some interior illustrations for a new anthology from PS Publishing called The Mad Butterfly's Ball, edited by Preston Grassmann and Chris Kelso. I also contributed a short story... Continue Reading →
I'm working on a new book of drawings called AURA. BEETLE IN THE BOX is intended as the first illustration and serves as the portal into the world of the book. AURA will encompass all aspects of my aesthetic: fantasy, surrealism, humour and horror. It is a journey, but not a structured narrative, as in... Continue Reading →
Cover Illustration by Richard A. Kirk for “The Dinosaur Tourist” Pictured above is an illustration I did for the cover of a short fiction collection by Caitlin R. Kiernan. It was rendered with a 0.18 Rotring Rapidograph for people who are interested in such things. I’ve always enjoyed working with subjects from natural history. This... Continue Reading →
Many of you that follow my work will have seen the images I created earlier this year for the vinyl reissue of KoRN Untitled—KoRn's 8th studio album. In this post I will show you some of the production shots I took while I was working on this project. It's my practice to document my work... Continue Reading →
A couple of years ago, I was approached by Earthling Publications to illustrate a very limited collector's edition of Dune. In the months that followed—of course, I said yes—I created 12 large graphite and carbon pencil drawings for the interior and a wraparound cover in oils. Dune was a dream gig for me. I grew... Continue Reading →
For highly rendered ink drawings I like to start with a detailed graphite line drawing. This piece started life as a proposed book illustration. If you look carefully, you can see the vertical line that marks the edge of the original drawing. When the editor selected another piece in its place, I finished the drawing... Continue Reading →
Title page for Tailor of Echoes, Illustration Richard A. Kirk, Design Michael Smith Tailor of Echoes is available for pre-order from PS Publishing! The past week was fairly busy. As previously mentioned, I am working on illustrations for a very special book. I expect that work to continue into 2022. It’s not a project I... Continue Reading →
I am very excited to announce that my new illustrated novel Tailor of Echoes will be published by PS Publications in December 2021! It is now available for pre-order from the publisher! There are 2 editions: a jacketed hardcover and a signed and numbered limited edition of 100. The ancient City of Steps is transforming.... Continue Reading →
Richard A. Kirk | Visual Artist | Author 