San Diego Zoo Elephant in Black and White

This illustration of an African elephant started with a photograph we snapped at the San Diego Zoo several years back.  The original photo was not that great and, in fact, there was a cable running horizontally through the middle.  In pen and ink, I was able to clean up the composition substantially and come out with something that looked interesting and pleasing to me.  This illustration was done with the stipple technique and probably took more than 30 hours.  Stippling is good for capturing subtle variations of tone but bad on the hand.  There could possibly be more than a million individual ink dots on this drawing.

I have been learning a lot about scanning and photographing artwork allowing me to put these images on line.  At first glance, it would seem that scanning pen and ink drawings would be very straightforward; just black and white, right?  However, I have found that my ink is never perfectly black and when scanning I must scan in gray scale, not pure black and white.  Then, the paper is never perfectly white and the surface texture will show up if I am not careful. After doing some on-line research I found some relatively simple techniques utilizing the advanced scanner software capability (adjusting the light curve and histogram).  Then it is a question of further adjustments, matching what you see on the original illustration against what you see on screen and what the printout looks like.

You can click on this image to see a larger view.

Transported Lion

This latest pen and ink illustration is of a young, male lion.  I started with a mediocre photograph I snapped at the San Diego Wild Animal Park (Now the Safari Park).  I decided to transport the lion back to what I imagined would be something like his native African habitat by modifying the background.  The background is purely a figment of my imagination. 
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Faces of Penang - Generations

During my stay in Penang this year I had an opportunity to attend the Thaipusam festival.  At the foot of the hill leading up to the Indian temple I happened to snap a photo with my iphone of three generations of women taking a break in the shade on a very hot day.  The photo was not all that great but I liked the composition and used it for the basis of this pen and ink illustration.  I really liked the contrast in the women's ages, each one gazing in a different directions and the variety of textures.

I have walked up Penang Hill several times now, both on the so-called Jungle Trail starting at the Moon Gate by the Botanical Garden and also by way of the Jeep Trail, also originating at the Botanical Garden.  Each time I have gone, I have seen monkeys.  They are all over the place, jumping through the trees, rummaging through the dumpsters, and up on the hill waiting for someone to drop something.  I have been told by some that the monkeys can get a little nasty.  If you are carrying something and are not careful they might grab it from your hands and take it up into the trees.  The day I ran across this fellow, I was on the Jungle Trail.  He and several others were on the trail in front of me and in the trees above.  As you can see, he was much more interested in his buddies in the tree than he was in me.  Another day, I was walking down the Jeep Trail at about 6PM in the evening and it seemed like the entire monkey population was out on the road looking for dinner.  I literally walked through the monkey gauntlet.  There were monkeys on both sides of the road; there were big ones, little ones, everywhere.  I decided to ignore them as best as possible and they did the same for me.

This picture was sketched from a photo I took with my iPhone.  For some reason I could not get him to sit still long enough to pose for the picture on the spot.