Drawing Flies 52_09 Deceiver

Drawing Flies 52_09 Deceiver-Watercolor and Gouache

Original status: S O L D !

Swing by Jason's blog to check out his rendition of the of the Deceiver!

Tech Info- Pretty straight forward watercolor base then punching it up with some gouache. I always start with the same struggle, dark background or light background. The shape of the fly and the general color usually dictates which way I would go. I could have gone either way so I decided to go light. I aways figure that I can aways go darker if I change my mind mid stream. This one took 26 minutes to complete.

Update: Jason's rendition is my favorite to date! Swing by his blog for my comments.

Next week's fly - a McGinty.

On The Record With...Jeff Kennedy

My local newspaper ran an article on my Drawing Flies 365 project. You can read the article here.

Drawing Flies 52_08 Partridge and Orange Soft Hackle

Drawing Flies 52_08 Partridge and Orange Soft Hackle-Digital and watercolor

Original status: Prints Available. Contact me for information.

Swing by Jason's blog to check out his rendition of the of the Soft Hackle!

Tech Info- Went digital on this one. I produced a series of flies in this method for Fly Fusion Magazine. Recently, I completed a fly for a soon to be announced Patagonia program using this same method. The software used to create this image was primarily Adobe Illustrator with some support help from Adobe Photoshop. I started the process by sketching the fly, working on proportions and experimenting with shapes. I then scanned my sketch and placed it in a background layer in Illustrator. Although the final image was created digitally, the background was created by throwing down some watercolor on a sheet, scanning it and compositing it with the Illustrator image. Just cannot get away from using a brush and paints! I like the look of the results achieved by the fusion of traditional and digital media. No matter what media I use, I follow the same process and always start with hand sketches of the fly. I could have rendered the fly in Photoshop, but I chose Illustrator because I like the way I can uses blocks of colors instead of gradients to get the shapes to read. I ran right to the 30 minute mark with this one! I could have easily added more detail in the hackle, but would have run out of time. The 30 minute limit really forces you to think loose and use economy of marks to get your image down quickly.

The Partridge and Orange is one of my favorite soft hackle wet flies that I go to when dries are not producing strikes. I really enjoy swinging this fly down and across to pools that I know are holding fish.

Update: Just had the opportunity to check out Jason's excellent rendition of the Soft Hackle! Really dig the long flowing spey style hackles.

Next week: Deceiver streamer

Drawing Flies 52_07 Hex Dun

Drawing Flies 52_07 Hex Dun-Sepia ink and Watercolor in my Moleskine sketchbook.

Original status: Available. Contact me for information.

Swing by Jason's blog to check out his rendition of the of the Hex Dun!

Tech Info- My day job has me on the road today, so I am posting this one early. Laid down some sepia using my bamboo quill pen. Added in some watercolor to draw attention to that signature extended body and moose hair tail. More info when I return.

Update: Jason also did a great rendition of the extended body Hexagenia. He used a comparadun style wing. Lots of great color!

Our next fly will be a soft hackle- artists choice.

Drawing Flies 52_05 Muddler Minnow

Drawing Flies 52_06 Muddler Minnow-Compressed Charcoal on Pastel Paper.

Original status: Available. Contact me for information.

Swing by Jason's blog to check out his rendition of the of the Muddler Minnow!

Tech Info- Now for something completely different! My buddy Corey and I were having a beer after the GreatWater show this past weekend and he mentioned how he liked a past graphite version I did of the muddler. I created this muddler sketch about 4 years ago. I wanted to do something a little bit different from the original muddler and to break away from the watercolors and gouache, so I decided to used some compressed charcoal on a cream colored pastel paper. I started with a very quick sketch of the basic shapes. I used my 6B pencil for this. I then started to block in the dark areas around the outside edges of the shape. This resulted in a nice negative shape of the muddler. I then added some details and dark marks to the interior to help describe the forms. I used my hand to smudge the charcoal to create some values. My finger tips and palm of my hand were black with charcoal. I had to make sure that I did not dry my hands on the light colored towels in the bathroom or else! If I do another in this style again, I will use a different paper. Although I like the tooth of the pastel paper, This brand of paper has very distinct horizontal lines that are part of the graining of the paper. The lines are a bit distracting and take a lot of work to fill in.

Update: After looking at the image a day later, thee one thing that I would change is to have some more midtones. A bit too heavy on the darks. I could add some more mids and maintain overall the mood of the image.

Jason had some happy accidents and new discoveries with this one. As the time approaches the 30 minute mark, you tend to do some quick responsive things to get the fly done. It is this type of experimentation that pushes us into new directions. Way to go Jason!

Next week will be a Hex Dun pattern - Artist choice.

Below is an in progress shot. You can see my quick warm up sketch off to the left.

Below is a picture of the Muddler Minnow I did over 4 years ago.