Sonja Axelrod Drawing

This drawing scared me.  My scribble style works best when I'm drawing photos with really hard shadows.  Well shot photos, especially portraits of people are much harder.  Sonja is a friend of my old school freestyle friend Alma Jo Barrera, and saw the pics I did for her.  She wanted a drawing of her for her husband as an anniversary gift.  Sonja loves her kid, her dogs, tattoos and weightlifting.  I drew her on a simple background with an oak tree in the background, which is a symbol of strength and persistence to me.  I was worried when I sent it out, but she liked it.  Happy Anniversary.

Check out my new blog on building creative scenes:
How to make your lame city better

Alma Jo and Ali

Alma Jo Barrera of Texas was one of the few women to get seriously into BMX freestyle in the 80's.  I got to know her then, and we reconnected on Facebook a year or so ago.  She asked me to do a series of drawings for her.  This one, of her and her dog Ali near a river, was a new challenge for me.  With my style, faces don't always come out well, and I'd never drawn rushing water, which is a lot trickier to do than it sounds.  But I gave it my best shot, and added the color bars top and bottom to play off the color in Ali's collar.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".