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/

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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.

Drawing is more than seeing

Learning to draw again as an adult is a tad bit different from learning to draw as a child. There is a freedom of imagination and expression in childhood drawing that gets overshadowed sometimes by the need to control and plan in adulthood. A watercolor sketch from direct observation Some say that learning to draw is learning how to see, but that isn’t quite right. It is important to see certain aspects of form, shape, light and atmosphere in order to better observe what you want to represent realistically. But learning to draw is all about learning to control lines, shapes and edges on a surface in order to build a picture of what you see. So drawing involves much more than seeing. Drawing is a constructive and organizing activity that communicates ideas. In this way it goes beyond seeing and simple observation. It is related to speech. It organizes lines and shapes on a surface so that something new can be seen, felt or understood. A cave drawing organizes lines so that viewe...

Drawing in order to imagine

Jonathan sketching Drawing is a form of entertainment that goes way, way back in the history of humans. It's also a powerful tool for imagination. Computer and AI assisted animation are simply advanced forms of imaginative drawing. I like to use drawing in service of the imagination by drawing what I'd like to see in a narrative. My son Jonathan enjoys movies and imaginitive adventure. So Saturday night before bed, I told him we could get our shared big sketchbook off the book shelf and imagine we were going on an adventure. I asked him what we should start with. "Draw a jeep," he said. So I drew a jeep driving down a rugged path. Jonathan then drew some trees. He asked me to draw some dinosaurs; a dilophosaurus spitting green venom, a brachiosaurus eating leaves, Dakota Raptor running through the trees, a pterodactyl sauring in the air. "Draw an Indominus Rex," he asked after all the others. "Cool!" was his response when I sketched somet...

Penn's Sketchbook

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