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 remember doing Nightlight at a time when I was searching for a new approach to ink drawing. This technique of building up layers of cross hatched ink is one that I now use regularly. With Nightlight and another drawing called 10 Cent Dream I worked out a lot of the technical challenges. Richard
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 →
Continuing the Walking Backwards theme for a second day, I give you Idle Hands. This one wasn't even on my hard-drive. It was hidden away on a recordable DVD. Honestly, I had completely forgotten about it. I'm not sure why. It has a lot of my favorite elements: books, wasp nests, birds, weird characters with... 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 →
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 →
As you can see, it was a rainy morning and the light levels were low. Never the less, I thought I'd share this photograph of "Panspermia," framed and ready for its journey to the Alexi Era Gallery in Mascoutah, IL. Inquiries should be made to the gallery. The framing was done by Rivertown Galleries in... Continue Reading →
This artwork is called Harrowing Sediment. The original (still available, incidentally) was created for a show in 2012. Details can be seen below. Harrowing Sediment and other images are available as prints in my Big Cartel art shop. If you order this image, before the end of November, I will include a free miniature print... Continue Reading →
I had to take advantage of the light this morning to do a watercolor (or strictly speaking an acrylic ink) painting. The paper wasp nest on the figure's head is directly inspired by a yellow-jacket nest I've been watching over the summer in our garden. The recent cold mornings have killed off the nest, but... 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 