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
Last night, I cleaned out my trusty Rotrings so that I could do some pointillism work. I had an idea for a new drawing, a flower creature. This kind of drawing starts off as stream of consciousness, all about the sheer pleasure of line. The finish though will be very controlled and polished, as everything... Continue Reading →
I finally finished rendering The Tin Man's Dream in pointillism. This drawing was started back in 2014 as a line drawing. It sat for a year, during which time I digitally colored the image. At the end of last year I decided to complete it as a pointillism piece. I'm hanging on to the original,... Continue Reading →
This is a detail of the piece I am working at on this cold, cloudy November day. It's a small figure but it took 3 hours to ink. The reason being that the brush I was using is superfine, and though the godless jpeg compression would not have you believe it, the gradations are quite... Continue Reading →
Along with a couple fairly involved ink drawings, I also have several paintings on the go. Everything is in various states, from OMFG why did I start this thing? to hey this is working. So, those of you who paint will know the piece above (put through a render on my "tin type" app) only... Continue Reading →
This watercolour is a study for a future oil painting. I wanted to give the figure an avian quality, hence the placement of the eye. The whole piece hinges on that pitiless eye! I think it's also quite funny. I have a series of paintings in mind featuring monsters in remote outdoor settings. I plan... Continue Reading →
I guess most artists must have a place where old sketches and ideas stratify over the years. Mine is known by the unremarkable designation of "the paper rack," which is actually an old library atlas stand. It is so overburdened that one day I expect it will fall through the floor into the basement. Yesterday... Continue Reading →
There is still much to be done on this new drawing, but having finished one fairly defined section I thought I'd share a work in progress (WIP). If you saw my earlier post on this piece, you'll notice that I have added to the title. "Tears of the Poppy" is a line taken from the... Continue Reading →
Here is a look at the drawing's bones. What you see here will soon disappear under layers of ink. I find these line drawings have a beauty of their own, which is why I always take the time to make a high resolution scan of them before rendering. The ink looks a bit darker here... Continue Reading →
“I tell you, there are more worlds, and more doors to them, than you will think of in many years!” ― George MacDonald, Lilith I've been thinking of doors to different worlds for many years. Or maybe its the same world, just many different doors. The first drawing was done in 2004, the second this... Continue Reading →
For the last couple of weeks I've been working on a series of cross hatched drawings. It started out as a test of some paper I found in the back of my paper rack called #234 Paris Bleedproof Paper for Pens by Borden and Riley. I have a habit of picking up tablets of paper... Continue Reading →
Richard A. Kirk | Visual Artist | Author 