Jamie Rowe of Guardian

This is an oldie, but a history-maker. This was basically one of my first real “successful” portraits that I’d done, experimenting with charcoal pencils and sticks. I drew this in my junior year of high school for Art II class. It even made it into the school art show. At a Guardian concert in May 1997, I was able to show the picture to Jamie Rowe who at first thought it was just a photo copy. He signed the matting around the drawing in the picture frame and it currently resides somewhere in my parents’ house I believe. Jamie has even used the drawing for t-shirts for his solo music career in recent years!

Leonardo DiCaprio (Charcoal)

I drew this picture for my 16-year-old cousin Laura in January/early February ’98, and gave it to her soon after I finished. She had begged me to draw Leo for her for a long time and in the midst of all the hype with Titanic and her persistence, I caved in. Being that I drew this in high school, often working on it in school, an overwhelming amount of people wanted copies. So, I scanned it onto the computer, printed it out, & handed out over 30 copies. This drawing inspired the art gallery section of Jesusfreakhideout.com which later became this site. Anyway, I used white & black charcoal pencils and a stick of condensed charcoal for the large black areas. It’s actually one of the very few drawings I’ve done in charcoal that I’ve liked enough to even post here. I did quite a few in high school for classes (and maybe a few in college?), but I can say, as of 2010, that I probably haven’t worked with the medium in a good 10 years at least.