Drawing Flies On Vacation

I will be gone on a fishing trip until Thursday of next week. Never fear, I have my sketching and painting supplies all packed up. I will still be creating my daily sketches and I will post them when I return.

No. 158

"Old Skool Drawing Flies Template" Digital. I use to use these templates back in the day. Actually, even though I do a lot of my design work in 3D on the computer, I still pull out my templates when I do some sketching. I did retire the slide rule!

No. 157

Quick pen drawing.

No. 156

"Lite Brite Soft Hackle" 8" x 10" ink and watercolor. I just finished tying up a half dozen of these soft hackles. At our annual end of the year dinner/ fly swap, I picked a couple of these up in the swap. I used these on the Au Sable in Michigan last year with great success. The actual name and the tier are unknown. The body is pearl ice dub with a silver bead. The collar is a partridge soft hackle.

No. 155

"Finger Fly" I laid down a watercolor wash on YUPO which is a synthetic paper that repels water and water based pigments. After the wash was complete, I used my finger to push paint away and paint the fly. Kind of takes me back to grade school when you would finger paint.

No. 154

"Crazy Charlie" 10" x 8"color and gouache. I have been wanting to get to a saltwater patter for a while. Today it was over 80 degrees here, so it was time for some salt! This pattern is so simple and a classic.

And the Winner Is....

The winner for the month of May drawing is (drum roll) ... Kerry P.
Kerry wins a print of his choice from the Drawing Flies archive for emailing fly suggestions.

Congrats Kerry.

No. 153

Brook has a new tattoo! I am sure that you will be able to find it. Brook will be featured in a twelve month 2009 calendar. Stay tuned for the update.

No. 152

"One Fly Logo" Tomorrow is our annual one fly contest. this is the logo that we use on our score sheets. Rules are you get one fly to use. Catch as many fish as you can in a 3 hour period. We use this cool score sheet which has a "No Cheatum Ruler" that you use to measure the fish before you release them. The person with the highest number of inches of fish is the winner. If you loose your fly during the competition, you are done.

No. 151

"Akroyd Sketch" Watercolor - This is a quick study of the classic Akroyd Dee fly. There will be a full blown painting to come. Just experimenting with the shape and character.

No. 150

"Generic Dry" Just a quick pen sketch of a quill wing dry. Very simple in it's shape and form.

No. 149

"Electric Fly" Digital. This is for the Electrical Engineers in the crowd. I have always appreciated the beautiful shapes that are etched on the PC board.

No. 148

"SCUD!" Pen and ink. Scuds are so cool. I love finding these little babies in the stream. I have plucked some big ones out of a few spring creeks that I frequent. Some of them are so big, all you would need is some cocktail sauce for dipping and you would have a stream side appetizer.

No. 147

"Morning Light" Watercolor and graphite sketch composite. There is nothing like the feeling of the morning sun hitting you in the face. The bugs start to come off and it is just a peaceful time on the water.

No. 146

"Hopper Sketch" Hand sketch on bond paper with digital color. I was just messing around sketching this hopper. I plan on doing some sort of painting. I thought it would be fun to take the rough sketch and throw some color on it.

No. 145

"Muddler" 6" x 6" Graphite on paper.

No. 144

"The Big Three" With the big Memorial Day weekend coming up, I decided to draw three flies to cover me for the next few days. The challenge to everyone is this, if you were stranded (fresh or salt water) what are the three flies you wish you had with you? I already have my three - X-Caddis, Gold Ribbed Hares Ear and a Soft Hackle. I have full confidence in these flies if I ever needed them in a survival situation in fresh water. The other pictures show some of the flies and the line that I have wrapped around a canister in my Boy Scout Survival Kit. I hope I never need them, but as the Boy Scouts say, "Be Prepared".

No. 143

"Crayfish" 5" x 5" ink and watercolor. It is small mouth time. Dig in!

No. 142

"Splat Fly" 7" x 10" I took a toned sheet of watercolor paper then painted a piece of card stock with some random paint. I then placed in on the watercolor sheet and smacked it. I added the details with some more watercolor and gouache.

No. 141

"Lefty's Deceiver" 8" x 10" watercolor. Just a quick one today. Just laying down some paint to create a nice shapes.