In keeping with the food theme, like the drawing of an apple, here is an oil pastel drawing of an ice cream cone. The oil pastel medium lends itself to techniques like blending and scratching, which helps add dimension to the art. The ice cream cone shape and colors were blocked in first, and texture details were added to the cherry and cone. I started by blending the chocolate ice cream with my fingers, and then continued with the rest of the drawing. Once the blending was complete a few more cycles of drawing in details and blending were continued. The quick oil pastel sketch was finished by adding a cherry on top.

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This is an apple drawn with oil pastels. Blocks of color were sketched in to define the shape and form of the fruit, while slight variations in value were also applied in layers. The oil pastel medium lends itself to blending, either with a tool or fingers, which helps create gradient effects. Once the apple was drawn and blended, frantic lines were energetically whipped around and through the apple to add a surrealistic perspective.

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This is a charcoal drawing and acrylic painting of a skull attached to a skeletal corpse. The artwork was initially sketched in 1998 with black charcoal. Then black, white, and brown acrylic paint was energetically brushed onto the canvas board with a palette knife. The dark colors reflect the morbidity of the subject, and the way the paint colors are pushed, pulled, mixed, scraped, and twisted around the canvas add a tension and unexpected life to the art. The composition of the skull on the skeleton, with eyes slightly above the horizontal midpoint, help suggest that the subject was posing for a portrait.

A variety of stylistic approaches have been applied to other skull drawings, such as this Skull Drawing Still Life, and this Painting of a Skull.

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This still life drawing of a Shoe was sketched with colored pencils in 1997. The artwork is approximately 9×12 inches, and the old shoe takes up a lot of space on the paper, thus appearing to be large and solid. An initial sketch of the shoe was drawn with light grey pencil, and then black was used to fill in shadows and indents in the cloth and rubber materials. Faint traces of brown color were used to add some warmth to the drawing, and highlights were added by scraping away the colored pencil medium, revealing the white paper beneath. To see similar artworks, visit the Pencil Drawings and Sketches Art Gallery for a Drawing of Shoes.

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This is an oil painting of an old sailing ship at sunset, which looks vaguely like a ghost ship. The big boat was painted in 1997 and the artwork is approximately 2′x3′. The background sky and sunset were painted first, followed by the glowing hills and buildings. Water and reflections were painted next, simply by mirroring the shapes and colors painted above. Deep greens and blues were added to the murky water, and there is some tension created by the bright sun disappearing into the surrounding darkness. Lastly the boat and foreground were painted with similarly brisk brush strokes. Details like rope, flags, netting, sails, and waves splashing around the ship were painted last.

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