Americana, Rendered
original drawings for sale
What’s For Sale Here
These are all original drawings, not prints. You will receive a mailing tube with the actual, physical piece of paper that I applied pencils to in order to create the drawing.
Materials
They are all done on Strathmore 500 bristol plate, which is a very high-quality grade of artist paper — it costs about $3 a sheet. The graphite is Caran D’ache drawing pencils. The eyes of each subject are done in colored pencil. I use a mixture of Faber-Castell polychromos, Caran D’ache Luminance, and Prismacolor, depending on the actual eyes I’m rendering. Each brand has its own strengths and weakness, and I use the combination that will get the particular eyes in question as rendered as accurately as possible.
Artist Statement
I taught myself to draw from books and YouTube, and for a long time I wasn’t any good. That changed in a single day. An artist I admired told me the one thing that mattered — it isn’t talent, it’s a skill, and the skill is learning to see. Most people who wish they could draw try to draw people and things, and that’s exactly why they can’t. You have to learn to see lines and shadows instead. Once I did, the rest was practice. That one idea was worth years of lessons.
I grew up with hearing problems in an insular religious community, walled off from most of the culture other American kids took for granted. For the last six years I’ve been catching up — watching the movies, hearing the music — and drawing the people I found there. My subjects are all major figures in American history and culture: right now, Michael Landon as Pa Ingalls; next in the queue, Mr. Rogers, the Golden Girls, Reagan, Star Trek characters, Madonna, and more.
Every piece is graphite — lines and shadows, the thing I finally learned to see. The eyes are the only color in most cases (sometimes another element gets color, for reasons I hope make sense). In a face, the eyes are the one thing that matters most, so they’re the one place I infuse with color, in the hope and with the intent of having the life come through them.
How to Buy
Each listed piece has its own Stripe link, on a pay-what-you-want model with a minimum set to cover insured US shipping and the cost of materials.
If you’re outside the US, please email me (vtwriterartist at gmail dot com) instead of using the link. Non-US shipping means customs forms and a special in-person trip to the post office, so we’ll need to make an arrangement ahead of time.
I don’t ever want to price someone out of art — I used to be poor myself. My originals have sold for anywhere between $100 and $1,600, averaging $511 so far, and I’ve been happy and grateful every single time.
Abraham Lincoln
This Lincoln drawing is superb, Holly!