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 on more ink and watercolour pieces over the past couple of weeks. Both of these new pieces were done with a dip pen on art board and then painted with water colours. The first is a clean line style. Explorers is fully cross hatched, which gives it the look of a vintage... Continue Reading →
I'm finding watercolour a good antidote, or at least coping mechanism, for the monochrome of the Ontario winter. These pieces started as ink line drawings done with a dip pen, which I later painted with watercolours. This is essentially Arthur Rackham's technique. The first image, Agitator, was adapted from a tiny pencil sketch I made... Continue Reading →
There are 120,000 + species of flies in the world. Flies have many associations, some darker than others. One of the more positive associations is that of persistence, which seems apt in the context of this stippled piece. I started this drawing on November 1, 2025 and expect that it will take much of the... Continue Reading →
October has finally arrived and I have been in the studio working on a number of new pieces for upcoming shows and book projects. My most recent work is called For I Would Ride with You Upon the Wind. The piece is now available in an online show presented by Inverarity Gallery called “Monochrome: Goddess.”... Continue Reading →
It has been a quietly productive summer in the studio . I finally completed revisions on my new novel The Garden of Certhia, which was a great personal milestone and frees me up to tackle my next writing project called Scattered Ghosts. Naturally, I haven't been neglecting my drawing table, and I have posted some... Continue Reading →
To Wander Where I Will, 2025, ink on paper, 24" x 18" Lately, I've become fascinated by fragmentary Greek masks such as the one above. I need to do more research on them, but on an emotional level, I truly love their mysterious, incomplete quality. This sensibility was the inspiration for my latest piece, a... Continue Reading →
Drawing of a Unicorn by a Man Who has Never Seen a Unicorn, 2025, ink on 300lb Arches coldpress, 11" x 7.5" I found a piece of 300lb Arches coldpress paper with a deckle edge hiding in a folder. It was perfect for this drawing. I have always been amused by the story of Albrecht... Continue Reading →
I usually document my work with my iPhone as I progress. I thought I would share some production shots of “Otolith. I like to begin with a graphite line drawing, where the composition is worked out fully before inking. With this piece, I was most interested in the accuracy of carp skull and introducing movement... Continue Reading →
Otolith, 2025, ink on paper, 14" x 10" I finished "Otolith" yesterday, but inspiration for the piece goes back to childhood memories of collecting fish bones on the shore of Lake Huron. I was, am, drawn to the bones for their interesting shapes. They end up bleaching on window-ledges or lost in various drawers. Over... Continue Reading →
For the past few weeks I have been busy in the studio working on some new pieces. The pictures below are my most recent works and both are available in my Big Cartel webstore. Key Bearer, 2024, silverpoint, 12"x9" Key Bearer is a new silverpoint drawing executed on acid free hotpress illustration board. In this... Continue Reading →
Richard A. Kirk | Visual Artist | Author 