Portrait-Artist.org -Pen and Ink (Rapidograph technical pen) portrait art portfolio

My portrait art portfolio
Pen and Ink drawings and Illustrations

I found this drawing tossed in an old box of stuff in the garage. (Actually, that's where I find a lot of my artwork!) I thought it might be worth sharing, so I scanned it in, and here it is! The original is about 9x12". This is some "fan art" of the late actor, Jon-Erik Hexum.

I always liked this drawing. I made this for the cover of a "fanzine" (privately published "fan" publication) that ended up never getting published. I no longer have the original, but I did find a beaten-up old Xerox of the illustration. With a bit of Photoshop assistance, I fixed it up enough to show here. (Look at the larger version of this illustration if you are a fan of the old '80s Pierce Brosnan show "Remington Steele". There are a lot of little details I put in the picture that a die-hard fan will appreciate!)

I included a Rapidograph in the composition, as my own personal "in-joke". I was able to meet the cast of "Remington Steele" (one of my friends worked on the show) and I had the two lead actors sign an illustration I'd made. Pierce Brosnan commented on the Rapidograph I was using, since he used to be a commercial artist himself. (With his accent, however, he pronounced it as "Rapeedograph".)

Below: some small "spot illos" (4x5") for "fanzines". When I was going to art school, I had a lot of fun illustrating fan fiction. Since I was studying Illustration in school, (and since I'm such a film buff) I enjoyed the extra practice!

I never intended this to be that good of a likeness of anyone, really. I just enjoyed drawing the figure, face and clothing from my imagination. It's another one of the drawings that I really like, for some reason.

Not a great likeness (I won't tell you who it is supposed to be!). I wanted to show this illustration, because of the amount of ink I used for it. I used a medium-sized paintbrush and just painted in the large dark areas. I then inked in the details with my trusty Rapidographs.

Some more examples of pen & ink portraits. On some of these illustrations, I didn't even try to do a preliminary pencil sketch of the face - I just started drawing with the non-erasable india ink! Pretty daring of me - but I usually ended up using some sort of opaque white paint to cover up a few errors. I don't recommend relying on opaque "cover up" for your ink work, but if your drawing is for publication, it doesn't matter if you do a few touch-ups here and there. The camera can't pick up the opaque white paint.

No permission is given to use the information, (graphics, text) on this site in any other way other than for individual use. You may not use, publish or copy the information to a floppy disk or any other type of storage system or device without permission from me, JR Dunster. You may only print out one copy of each page (for personal use only).

All "fan art" or "celebrity art" is shown for educational purposes (this is an educational site). No copyright is claimed or assumed on the original subject of the "fan art," as that belongs to the individual movie studio or copyright holders.

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