As part of an ongoing project, I've been making drawings and paintings of American presidents. These are studies of the features of men like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and even Harry Truman. The idea has been to use the series as a way to practice many different disciplines as well as produce images to use in future work. So I've done graphite drawings, digital drawings, casein paintings, and oil paintings of some of the presidents of the United States. Here are a few.
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| "Dwight Eisenhower," graphite, 2017 |
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President Dwight Eisenhower was enormously popular in the mid-20th century. He had been the general in charge of the the American and Allied forces during World War II before being elected in the 1950s. His high forehead and relatively long face make him difficult to sketch. This is graphite on toned paper, about 6x8.
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| "Thomas Jefferson," digital, 2017 |
This is an digital drawing of Thomas Jefferson, who was the third president. Jefferson has been controversial in recent decades owing to his having owned slaves and having a multitude of mixed-race descendants. The contradictory nature of his stand on human rights versus also owning human beings has been difficult to reconcile.
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| "Abe," oil on panel, 2014 |
Abraham Lincoln is probably the most revered of our presidents because of his central role in preservation of the nation itself during the Civil War. His influence has continued even a century and a half after his death. This is an oil study done from a photograph taken in about 1864. The colors were invented, of course, since color photography didn't exist at that time.
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