Keep it Down Now, Voices Carry, 9x12 inches crayon on Rives BFK paper by Kenney Mencher

FREE SHIPPING Shipping takes 3-4 Weeks This ships from Round Lake Beach, Illinois. A suburb outside of Chicago. I use UPS and sometimes US Post.

There was a commercial in the 1980s or 1990s that said something along the lines of, “if you want to capture some attention, whisper.” It was a kind of playful commercial and I’ve always liked that idea that when you’re goofing around with a lover sometimes you make gestures like this. I also think that the subject matter of a hairy young otter with razor stubble is a winning one.

I tried to draw as much as I can. Most of the time I spend my days working on oil paintings in my studio. However, I spend a lot of time in the evenings as I watch TV and listen to music or audiobooks drawing.

I use a light fast black crayon to draw rather than a pencil. Mainly because pencil can smear more easily and the same goes for working with charcoal. I’ve found that working with crayon makes the drawing much more durable and less susceptible to getting smudged or damaged especially during shipping. I also draw on a superheavy cotton fiber paper called Rives BFK. It’s kind of an expensive paper because it’s supposed to be used for printmaking and it’s made out of cotton rather than wood pulp. This makes it feel deliciously thick and sturdy almost like one is trying on the same paper that used to make money.

Drawing is the way that I started painting but it’s also a way that I allow my imagination to run free and experiment with different subjects, techniques, and composition. In this drawing, I was working with the rule of thirds which is a compositional concept in which you try to create an asymmetrical composition by placing the subject or focus of the composition in one of the corners of the page rather than in the center.

I also played with composition by cropping as well as shifting the subject matter to the edges of the page. Often I like to have the figure “kiss” or touch the edges of the picture rather than float free in the center.