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
Dance of Spring, 2023, graphite on paper, 10" x 10" A small drawing completed a few days ago. Where I am in Ontario, Spring has been slow in coming and the sky has been very grey. With luck, the sun will soon come from behind the clouds and things will warm up. Regardless, things are... Continue Reading →
The Other Earth, 2023, ink on paper, 14” x 18” Earlier this year I was honored to get this special commission from a long time collector and friend, which I can now show you in its entirety. The theme of the piece is that of father and son—exploring your imagination and sharing the journey with... 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 →
A couple of years ago I drew an imaginary plant in silverpoint, which at the time I thought of as a the first in a series of drawings to be called Mysterious Garden. Well, I finally got back to that project last week and drew 2 more pieces in the series. I'm posting all 3... Continue Reading →
Birdseye, 2022, ink on paper, 17" x 14" Tonight, I am sharing a newly completed personal piece called Birdseye. I worked on it, off and on, over the summer, in between some book illustration projects and revisions to my novel in progress. Earlier this week, I turned in the latter to my literary agent, so... Continue Reading →
Under drawing for We Shall be Near You Today I am sharing the graphite under-drawing for a new piece called We Shall be Near You. I borrowed the title from a poem by Yeats. In the context of this piece, the words refer to the idea of friendship and loyalty, the nearness of others. I’m... Continue Reading →
There’s an old T.Rex song called Summer Deep. The first verse goes like this… Summer deep is in the hills againHis lady is a lionessWinds of birds blow through the fields againInvaders from the true worlds Summer ends on September 22, so I suppose we are in Summer Deep now. I spent most of this... Continue Reading →
The Assembly is a collaborative piece I did with American artist Joe MacGown. Joe prepared the board and started the drawing in ink. Earlier this year, I finished the piece, adding imagery to the top and bottom. I enjoyed working on this so much, I'm determined to do more work in ink on panel in... Continue Reading →
Over the last few weeks I've been doing some small stippled works between commissions. I thought I'd post some of them here for you to see. All of these drawing were done on 140lb hot press paper—my go-to paper for years, using .18 Rotring Rapidograph pen. Unless otherwise noted, these works are for sale on... Continue Reading →
Richard A. Kirk | Visual Artist | Author 