My drawings

Many thanks to Thomas for the link to a site called 'Artbreak' - I've just uploaded some samples of my drawings to that site.

I started sketching when I was a kid - and still have a couple of ringbinders full of stuff ranging from my earliest clumsy doodles, through to reasonably competent.
I used to exclusively sketch with graphite pencils, then when I got back into an old hobby (astronomy) about 10yrs ago, I started to sketch what I was seeing through telescopes, which eventually led me back to sketching other stuff, such as landscapes, aimals, cars, planes, etc...Then a year or so ago, I started to explore a high-contrast black ink style...

Anyhoo....
Here's my account at 'Artbreak'
http://www.artbreak.com/carlosdfc/works

You're really good and put me to shame.

Fantastic work. I wish I could draw like that.

Hi Carlos..
You're drawings are fantastic!

That's well good, it looks professional. D:

Very nice Carlos, particulary the dogs. Did you use paint or microsoft to change the photos into that black and white style?

Thanks for the kind comments everyone

Setanta wrote:Very nice Carlos, particulary the dogs. Did you use paint or microsoft to change the photos into that black and white style?

No, they're black ink drawings - if you click on the black ink pictures for thr full size image, you can see the pen strokes on some of the larger black areas.

I copy my landscapes and portraits from photos I've taken - with a smaller print pinned in the corner of my clipboard.
The ink drawings all start off as pencil sketches - then I switch to ink when I get to the shading stage - and rub out the pencil lines as I'm going

Do you have the original pencil sketches?
By the way, the ones you did of Stig and the greyhounds are fantastic.

Yup - still have the originals, 3 ringbinders full of 'em - those on artbreak are scans of only a few.
Some of the stuff in the binders is very basic, going back into my early teens.

The Greyhound race picture is more than 25yrs old - I did that one in my late teens/early twenties (I'm 47 now)

It's a great pic, really. Very good. Love to see the originals of the ink ones too.

Well all I have on the PC at the moment are the scans that are uploaded - but if you give me a few mins I could take a few photos of them in their binders.
There's a lot more than what's on Artbreak at the moment (I'll be adding more to artbreak when I get round to scanning them)
You'll see them far better when they're scanned, than in photos though......

don't worry. show me whatever you have. very impressed.

Okey-dokey - a few pics.

First off - the two pics of my dog that are on artbreak


The greyhound race - and a French tank from the 80s


An 80s F1 car, and a scene from a 1950s F1 race


A local church, and the 'Footbridge' pic on Artbreak


Alien and an Owl


And finally, my granddaughters

Very good, really. But I meant like the original pencil drawings compared with the ink stuff. Anyway, you're very talented.

Ah, I see
I go over the top of the pencil drawings, with the ink.
When I get so far along with a sketch, I decide which it's gonna be - pencil shaded, or high-contrast ink, then I'll shade it one way or the other.
If I go with the ink, I erase any pencil still showing, as I'm working.

Thanks for the kind comments though
Personally I think it's practice rather than talent - I can draw things as they are, so long as I can see the subject I can put a fair approximation of it onto paper - but I'm hopeless at doing anything from imagination, or actually 'creating' a concept.
I've been at it for probably about 25 years in total. My grandad was a fantastic artist - I idolised him, and started drawing with him probably only about 6 or 7yrs old

I particularly like the picture of your granddaughters.

Very good indeed.

They're well good Carlos! D:

Stacey. wrote:They're well good Carlos! D:

Thanks Stacey


I mentioned in the OP, that I got back into the sketching by drawing what I was seeing through telescopes....

Here are a couple of my astronomy sketches.
My method is to sketch on A4 with a soft pencil (2B to 6B depending on the subject) - scan the original sketch - then invert to white-on-black to give a 'natural' telscope view - with maybe a tweak of brightness and contrast if the inverted image is a bit bright or harsh.
The result is a reasonable approximation of what you can actually see in the telescope.

This is the great globular star cluster 'M13' in Hercules


This is how an astronomy sketch looks before scanning and negative inversion.


I used a 13mm Hyperion eyepiece to give me 154x magnification for seeing core detail, and a 25mm plossl, giving a wider 80x view for the surrounding field stars. The 'haze' around the core was just done by fingertip smudging.
Telescope was a 8" diameter Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain.


And this was from the same night - Jupiter with the shadow of the moon 'Ganymede' crossing it's surface.
If it were possible to stand in that black spot on the surface, you would see a total solar eclipse.


Eyepiece was a Hyperion, extended to 9.2mm with a fine-tuning ring - giving 217x
No need for image inversion when sketching planets - just make a circle and draw in the surface detail - draw little circles for the positions of the moons - then after scanning just flood-fill the black sky background.

The finished M13 image is very close to what you can actually see through a decent telescope.
Jupiter also similar, but planets can show some colour - Jupiter is a creamy colour, with faded red-brown cloud bands.

Awww - Bugger..!!!
Images too wide for the forum.
Here's the direct links to full pics
https://2img.net/h/oi56.tinypic.com/27y6fbn.jpg
https://2img.net/h/oi52.tinypic.com/2b85jp.jpg