Sketching through life

"Do you want to see how to draw a box? I'll show you."

My dad picked up the pencil and drew a square on a piece of paper. I watched as he connected diagonal lines to mimick a 3D box. From that very early lesson, my mind was settled that drawing was what I wanted to do.

My mom would often take my brothers, sister and me to a large public library located in Exton, PA, where I would pick out books about animals and attempt to draw from the photos and illustrations displayed inside. This and many outdoors experiences led to continued drawings of animals and birds, even during and after design school.

Bird illustration in watercolor of a wren standing on a cactus plant

Cactus Wren. Watercolor class project. 2003.

Illustration class project. Watercolor and Color Pencil. 2003.

In 2006 I began working in the wall coverings industry as a digital graphic artist. I later worked in textile design before switching to another role. During much of the last decade in the commercial art world, I no longer produced much regarding personal artwork. However, that has begun to change, inspired by some commissioned work and also from the experience of parenting a young boy who also enjoys animals, dinosaurs, and all things outdoors.

Commissioned illustration. Watercolor and digital media. 2016.

A sticky note dino sketch for my son. 2017.

River trout for my dad. Watercolor. 2017.

In the weeks to come, I will post more pictures and describe more experiences as I continue this journey of learning to make better art and design while interacting with the world around.

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Step-by-step: Painting the bell tower and waterfall of Longwood Gardens

Chimes Tower at Longwood Gardens, Watercolor. 9"x12". Here's a step-by-step look at how this watercolor landscape was made. Inspiration was rooted in many family visits to Longwood Gardens outside of Philadelphia. We had ice cream near this pond that features a small waterfall and a bell tower from which musical chimes can be heard playing. Step 1 I sketched out the composition, placing the tower in one of the thirds of the image. Step 2 I placed washes of blue for the sky and green for all of the areas of foilage. I also placed base colors for the tower, dry ground, and stones. Step 3 Next, I used richer and darker greens to make shadows in trees, bushes, and ivy on the tower. I also began coloring shadows in the tower. Step 4 I painted more shadows under leaves and stones to suggest detail, using a variety of light and dark greens. Step 5 I painted shadows and details for the left half of the wooded...

T. Rex is 'Tyrant Lizard King'

Tyrannosaurus Rex. 9"x12" Watercolor. After seeing photos of scaly Tyrannosaurus Rex skin, I painted the picture above using colors and patterns inspired by other large reptiles. Tyrannosaurus Rex means "tyrant lizard king", although it wasn't much like any lizard today. It's resemblance was more that of a dragon walking on two feet. At 40 feet long and weighing 8 tons (14 metric tons), tyrannosaurus was enormous. It stood 12 feet tall and had bone crushing teeth the size of bananas. It isn't known whether T-Rex was a scavenger or a fierce hunter, but its forward pointing eyes could be indicators of a keen sense of sight and razor sharp focus on its prey. Here's a second Tyrannosaur painting and a reference photos taken in the wild. Mother Tyrannosaur leading her young. 6.5"x 9" Watercolor. Wild Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton. Smithsonian c. 2018.

Instagram gallery

I took the advice of my sister recently and added some of my sketches to Instagram . My plan is to update Instagram with new sketches as I am working on them. Watercolor sketches have been slow for me lately because of other commitments, but when the time becomes available again, I will be doing another portrait painting and a landscape painting, if God wills. Here is the account: https://www.instagram.com/penntomassetti/

Penn's Sketchbook

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