Mike Linkovich Art

Ink Skull Studies

2008-05-18T20:25:00.005-04:00

Because you can't practice enough from life (or in this case, a cast.)

Hunt 102 nib, brush pen.

Snow

2008-02-27T22:38:00.004-05:00

It's all we've got lately.

In the Grand Tradition of Pin-up Art

2007-10-11T18:36:00.000-04:00

Here are a couple of recent efforts in a genre that's over a century old:

According to Wikipedia, the term "pin-up" was coined in the 1940s, but the genre itself can be traced back to the 1890s.

Here's a cool vintage pin-up blog by a woman who collects old pin-up art. IllustrationArt also had a great post on the genre that lacks (maybe deservedly so) serious respect in the art world.

Focusing on Figures

2007-10-05T16:07:00.000-04:00

I've mostly been on a life drawing kick lately. My archive of life drawings has grown to an unwieldy size and the few that I think stand out from the pack are getting lost in the noise. So, I've added a new Figures section to my main gallery page, which features just a few of my favourites.

On a related note, processjunkie (AKA a blog run by Alberto Ruiz) posted an article featuring his favourite classic figure drawing books with handy links to download them in electronic formats.

From Parkdale

2007-09-10T21:18:00.000-04:00

Drawn with a nib and brush.

More from life

2007-09-04T14:26:00.000-04:00

Most recent pieces from life drawing sessions:

Keeping it real

2007-07-06T14:55:00.000-04:00

Whatever other drawing practice one does, there just isn't a good substitute for drawing from life. These are a couple from my last life drawing session at TSA:

Another Vintage

2007-07-03T13:52:00.000-04:00

Might as well post another vintage figure while I'm at it. I was actually kinda pleased with the torso of this one, but I'm still not getting great results with my fabric and folds.

Swinger, Slave

2007-07-02T16:02:00.001-04:00

This DeviantArt member posts a lot of really useful public-domain vintage photos which are ideal to use as drawing reference.

I find these photos are great for lighting, poses as well as hand and feet, which the photographers of the time seemed to pay a lot of attention to.

4 Stock Sketches

2007-06-30T19:06:00.000-04:00

Just a few quick ink figures to keep the blog alive.

This DeviantArt photographer has great reference material for figure sketching practice.

Ink Figures

2007-05-20T21:17:00.000-04:00

Lately, I've been enjoying using the combo of fountain pen and brush pen when I go to life drawing sessions.

It's been a long time

2007-05-04T12:10:00.000-04:00

Yes it has. I guess I've left the blog rotting because I tend to just put stuff up on my site without writing much about it, or post stuff elsewhere on the interwebs. But here's a recent painting. Actually several weeks old now, as you can tell from the weather...

Otherwise, most of my new work has been practice stuff, which you can find in the sketchbooks section of my site. Mostly I've been focusing on sketching scenes from around town in pen and ink, as well as getting back into life drawing whenever I can make time.

Anatomy Resources

2007-01-07T22:20:00.000-05:00

Here are some additional anatomy web resources that I've found recently:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_anatomy
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/gray/
http://www.reybustos.com/03ra/ra.html

Anatomy Phase I: Complete!

2006-12-28T16:30:00.000-05:00

So I've gone through the first 74 videos in The Structure of Man. And I can now do the following from memory:

Well, about 90% anyway. There are some details on the hands and the radius & ulna that I'm still a bit hazy about. Before I move on to the muscles, I'll try to do a few exercises putting the skeleton in 3D and in a variety of poses.

Bones

2006-12-26T13:37:00.000-05:00

So rather than just talking about it, I've started going through the anatomy lessons I posted about previously.

Along the way, I'm gradually building my own anatomy reference book. I'm not quite at the point where I feel I can leverage this skeletal knowledge much in my figure drawing; it's a lot of work and the muscles are going to be even more work. And after that it's going to be even more work to get comfortable drawing this stuff from my head and putting it in perspective. But it is something I feel I should've put the time into learning many years ago. Better late than never I suppose.

And I was just thinking

2006-12-17T17:03:00.000-05:00

about how I needed to learn more about human anatomy, and how to apply it to figure drawing.

This drawing gave me all sorts of trouble, trying to figure out how the obscured hips and right leg would look, and how the legs would attach.

Lucky for me then that I should stumble upon Riven Phoenix's The Structure of Man - 170 sequential videos freely viewable on YouTube, teaching you classical techniques on how to draw the figure from your mind. A fantastic project! I have a feeling this will become a staple of modern, internet-enabled art instruction. Thank you Riven Phoenix for creating such a valuable resource.

More Poses

2006-12-05T19:16:00.000-05:00

Tricky exercises in extreme perspective/foreshortening and motion. Reference courtesy of DeviantArt stock artists.

Femmes Fatales

2006-11-27T16:25:00.000-05:00

DeviantArt's stock art category provides limitless opportunity for finding drawing reference. Here are a couple of fun poses from my recent Web Models series:

Back to the Blog

2006-11-21T20:45:00.000-05:00

No, I haven't left the blog to rot... I've just been doing a lot of portraits and not blogging. Anyway, here are some of recent drawings I've done:

Both are Pentel pocket-brush on 11x14" bristol.

I came across a page recently on the Drawn.ca messageboard with links to PDFs of some highly-regarded art/illustration instruction books from the 1930s and 40s by Andrew Loomis:
Fun With a Pencil
Figure Drawing For All It's Worth
Successful Drawing
Eye of the Painter

Note that that download site makes you go through a few hoops, but just click the 'free' option. It'll also make you wait between downloads, so you'll have to space them out over a few hours.

The books must be seen to be believed - they contain some of the most useful information on drawing that you can get. Beyond that, they are each full of hundreds of stunning Loomis illustrations. I really wish I'd known about these books back in art college. Don't pass on the Fun with a Pencil because of the title, it's a very sophisticated yet easy to understand book that covers a much of what's in Figure Drawing and Successful Drawing.

And the portraits continue!

2006-09-26T00:38:00.000-04:00

Lots more added to the series since I last blogged. These are a couple of my favourites:

I've also come across some noteworthy blogs recently: Robert Hunt and Chris Wahl, who's got some awesome sketching and colouring videos.

Additionally, Today's Inspiration features tons of classic old illustrations. These Frank McCarthy layouts are awesome.

More Internet Portraits

2006-08-29T22:26:00.000-04:00

Here are the latest two drawings from my Internet Portraits series:

Internet Portraits

2006-08-26T15:12:00.000-04:00

I've started another series of ink brush drawings. This time, I'm doing sketches of people I've met online, many of whom I've never met in person.

Courtney in Queen's Park

2006-08-23T15:42:00.000-04:00

I'm not entirely happy with this piece, as it doesn't really look like the model. But I like some things about it. If nothing else, it shows me that my figure and portrait skills need work...

David Apatoff's Illustration Art Blog

2006-07-30T21:06:00.000-04:00

ILLUSTRATION ART is a site I was lucky enough to stumble upon, following a sidebar link from Drawn.ca (also a great site with lots of new work from around the web every day.)

David Apatoff puts a lot of love into his writeups that focus mostly on 20th century illustrations and illustrators. Never pretentious, never too wordy, but rich with a deep understanding of the work he chooses to write about. And the work that he does choose is well-distributed from the unknown to household names.

Whether you agree or disagree with some of his opinions (I usually find myself nodding at the monitor in agreement), he's always tactful and supports his arguments well.

SJgallery - A PHP Image Gallery

2006-07-29T13:55:00.000-04:00

I've released the PHP script I've been using to power the gallery section of my site under a public domain (i.e. free) license. It's not for everyone; you should be comfortable with editing XML and HTML files with a text editor, as well as using FTP to upload files to your webhost.

Still, I think there are some web-savvy artists out there who may find it useful. Check it out here.

More tracks and wires

2006-07-26T19:40:00.000-04:00

More streetcar wires and tracks at the corner of Roncesvalles and Queen.

Wires and Tracks at King and Dufferin

2006-07-22T11:58:00.000-04:00

This one shows the typical tangled insanity of wires and tracks at corners where streetcar lines intersect.

Billboard

2006-07-20T23:25:00.000-04:00

Just east of Roncesvalles on Queen, some giant billboards are perched atop these old apartment building rooftops.

Another one for the Parkdale Sketches series.

Slipstream

2006-07-18T09:00:00.000-04:00

Slipstream is another series of that I've been working on recently. Slightly sci-fi in theme, I've been drawing them on 24x18 newsprint using conte, then shooting them with a digital camera and adding colours in Photoshop.

This latest drawing is called Apocalypse Summer, based on the theory that global warming may eventually cause the gulfstream to shut down, ushering in a new ice age in parts of North America and Europe. (Though to be fair, there are also those that say otherwise.)

Parkdale Sketches

2006-07-16T18:30:00.000-04:00

I've started working in a different part of town this summer, in the Parkdale neighbourhood of Toronto. I've been doing some sketches of the nearby area with a cartridge ink brush.

This latest drawing is of my friend James, on his '85 Honda Shadow, in the parking lot behind our office/warehouse building.

By the way, the brush I'm using is a Pentel Pocketbrush. I highly recommend it if you want to experiment with ink & brush, but want the convenience of a felt-tip pen. Please Pentel, don't stop making these things.

Welcome to my mind

2006-07-16T16:06:00.000-04:00

So I thought I'd catch up to the 20th century and start up a blog of my own. I've had my own site for a long time now and I've hung out at and posted stuff at other sites (like DeviantArt for example) but I thought this would be a good way to list new artworks, write about them and anything else that happens to pop into my head at the moment.