Herman’s Antics

This is from an old photo I discovered recently. It is of my dad and his pals in the early 1900’s,

I wanted to do a black and white value study before I started painting in color. This is a rather large value study – the same size as the finished painting will be. I used a combination of pencils with varying leads and also vine charcoal to fill in the larger areas. I wish now that I had done it on a better quality paper as it turned out better than I had anticipated and I might have framed it. I decided to do a slightly different composition on the final painting which will leave out the large white strip going down the center of the drawing. The figures in the back will now make a connected shape. This change will also allow it to fit into an 18 by 24 frame a bit better.