In the studio with artist, photographer and instructor Robert Louis Caldwell

Well, I didn't get as far as I wanted, although I am happy with the progress and am ready for the demo tomorrow at the Aldie Mill Art Show & Sale. I will be at the show from noon to 5 p.m. working on the black vulture drawing. I hope to see everyone there. Below is a link to the map of Aldie, Virginia. Map of Aldie Mill:703-327-9777 39401 John Mosby Hwy Aldie, VA 20105, US I finished the background and worked on the little hairs of the head today.

I have been mainly working on the background today but you can start to see some more value being added in the feathers. I plan to work on this friday and saturday morning and I will post the progress saturday afternoon in preparation for the drawing demo on Sunday at the Aldie Mill Art show and Sale. Click on link to find out more about Aldie Mill -- http://www.nvrpa.org/parks/aldiemill/index.php

Here is the beginning of my Black Vulture drawing. It takes awhile to get one of my drawings off the ground because the first layer of graphite has to be carefully laid down. Working on Cotton rag watercolor paper, you have to be careful not to nick one of the fibers of the paper, doing so would make it difficult to work with. I have carefully used a 2h pencil to establish the first layer of value and then built on top of it. Once that first layer is down the graphite pencil glides over the surface. As you can see I have started to "push" back the shadows. -back to work!

This being my first posting, I would like to thank Terry Miller for suggesting I start a blog. If you haven’t seen Terry’s work or his blog, please visit his site at http://www.terrymillerstudio.com/ and his blog at http://pencilshaver.blogspot.com/ , both of which are also in the links section to the right. Right now I’m working on a graphite drawing of a black vulture, which I started on Friday and will continue to work on this week to complete it by September 30. On Sunday the 30th, I will be doing another drawing demo at the Aldie Mill Art Show & Sale from noon to 5 p.m. If you haven’t stopped by, this is your last chance to catch this year’s show before it closes. I hope to see you there! This is the very first step of one of my drawings, the comp or thumbnail sketch. It is the blueprint of what will be my finished work. Check back through the week to see the progress of this drawing.