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 →
A common question I hear is "where do you get your ideas?" I'm not sure I can answer that satisfactorily—it's a combination of lifelong interests and intuition. I can tell you how I get them to paper though. My favourite design tool is the humble Ultra Fine Black Sharpie marker. You can buy them by... Continue Reading →
The Stranger Greets the Dawn, 2023, ink on artboard, 10" x 11.5" I finished this drawing on September 10. It started life as an endpaper illustration for a forthcoming book project. In the end we chose another image, so I expanded the this original drawing and rounded out the composition. It is very much in-line... 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 →
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 →
Last night I finished Mysterious Garden Ex.1 a new silverpoint drawing. As the name implies, I plan to do a few more of these imaginary plants. This work is available on my Big Cartel webstore. On another note entirely, I have re-booted my book blog, Amnesiac's Library. It's a place where I talk about my... Continue Reading →
Rumour, 2020, ink on 140lb Arches hotpress paper, 7 x 10 inches Documentation - work in progress from iPhone Documentation - work in progress from iPhone Most of this week was spent editing my novel Tailor of Echoes before it goes back to the publisher for copy editing, but today, I needed to break out... Continue Reading →
One of the pieces I'm working on this fall is The Wedding of the Earth and Sky. It will be entirely stippled with my trusty Rapidograph pens. I am pleased with the progress so far. Apart from the pencilling, these images represent about 4-5 hours work thus far. I'm already penciling two more pieces in... Continue Reading →
I am offering 20% off original art on my web store until Sunday, May 19. This is a great opportunity to pick up a smaller original work for a great price. Several have already sold. I won't be offering sale prices again until the fall. Here is just one of the pieces currently available.
Wrath is my latest drawing. It was done for an upcoming show at Copro Gallery in California called 7 Sins. The show, curated by Cris Velasco, opens June 8.
Richard A. Kirk | Visual Artist | Author 