Mike Hendley

  • Harvest mouse and berries

    A little exploration with watercolor using Daniel Smith watercolors and a little Schminke super granulated. Created with a Pentel Aqua Brush in a hot press Etchr sketchbook. Palette is from Art Toolkit.

    Harvest mouse and berries

  • Graphite Cat Eye Study Complete

    Finished this little study of different cat eyes. Drawn on hot press paper using a Pentel Graphgear 1000. This is practice for a larger cat piece I am doing in acrylic. Yes, my first acrylic piece!

    Fours cat eyes drawn in pencil

  • Watercolor wood frog

    This little wood frog was exploring our yard. I rendered it with transparent watercolor and some white gouache.

  • Fall mushrooms

    A little watercolor entry in my journal based off of some of the mushrooms in our woods. Loved the colors here.

    Mushroom party

  • Snow Leopard in Gouache

    I recently completed this 8” by 10” rendering of a snow leopard with watercolor on 300 gsm black paper from Legion. It’s a mix of white gouache and transparent watercolor.

  • Toad in my perpetual journal

    I dropped into a coffee shop to render this little toad. I have rescued two so far this week. At little more than a quarter in size, they are still pretty small. Original drawing using a Micron 005 Sepia Pen and then watercolor with a Pentel Canada water brush.

    Coffee shop render in an A4 Etchr Sketchbook (hot press)

  • My art as a tattoo

    I was excited a year ago when Pierre, someone I went college with, reached out and asked if he could have one of my dragonfly placed on him as a tattoo. I said no problem and sent a high resolution version of the drawing. A year later, and he sends me the photo below. The tattoo artist did a wonderful job in adding colour to this image. Check out her work at Tattoos by Zu. Achievement unlocked ;-) Final tattoo in colourMy initial graphite drawing

  • Orange Echinacea

    My latest journal entry is orange echinacea. I was going to leave it as ink but decided to drop in some watercolor.

  • Acanthocephala terminalis painting

    Spent this beautiful Canada Day evening painting this acanthocephala terminalis I spotted earlier this week in the yard. Ink sketch then watercolor.

  • Painting Milkweed

    One of the plants that deserves more attention is the mighty milkweed. Often treated as invasive and destructive, it is very important for pollinators as well as monarch butterflies in their caterpillar stage. We have so much milkweed this year but not a single caterpillar as of yet, which is odd.

    We make an effort every fall to try and spread the seeds but it can be challenging at times to have them come back year after year.

    Also, if you haven’t enjoyed the scent from these flowers, you are missing out. Distinctive and intoxicating.

    This rendering was done using a Micron 005 with sepia ink for the sketch and then a Pentel Water Brush with Daniel Smith Watercolour and a little Holbein white gouache. I use an ArtToolKit palette to hold my paint and my current sketchbook of choice is the Etchr Hot Press Landscape book. This is the A4 which has exactly 52 pages. One page for each week of the year. Yes, this will be a 5 year journal or so.

    Palette and tools in full viewChoosing this corner to allow room for the next 5 years on this page

  • Now something different. This iPad drawing is of Rock Harbour Newfoundland. Spent a week there last summer. Hope to finish it tomorrow. 🎨

  • About 30 mins playing with dry brush in Procreate app on iPad with Apple Pencil. No reason for the subject choice. Except I wanted white on black with a piece from memory. 🎨

  • Spent more time on this drawing. Been so busy with work. Also, been working through the final touches of my first podcast “Drawing Inspiration” where I talk about all aspects of drawing. 🎨

  • The final in my iPad butterfly drawing series. Spent more time on this one but still not the level of detail I would normally do. I have a bunch of graphite to get done over the next 6 weeks as part of a course I am taking. 🎨

  • Busy but was able to get this lazy panda done today. Drawn on iPad using Procreate. 🎨 🐼

  • Drawing on a train 🎨

  • Latest addition to my iPad drawing series. This one was harder because I was on a train at the time. Had a chance now to finish it in the Union Station lounge. I haven’t spent my normal amount of time with regard to detail because that attention is for the chickadee. 🎨

  • I got a little more work done on this chickadee today. Crazy work week last week. This week has travel which means I have 8 hours on a train. Plenty of time of produce a couple of digital drawings. 🎨

  • Yes, had a chance to draw another butterfly before my evening meetings. 🎨

  • Quick 30 minute butterfly drawing on iPad using Procreate. Playing with new brushes. 🎨

  • My first drawing 14 years ago vs the piece I am working on right now. Practice, practice, practice. There are about 60 drawings between them (31 for Inktober 2018 alone). So thankful that I have a wife and family that allow me to follow my passion. Hope to do 60 this year. 🎨

  • Chickadee update - Happy St. Patrick’s Day ☘️

    Here is a full shot of the piece. I have a large amount of finicky bark at the bottom left to do. I am happy now with the background. I also added a bit more shadow under the tail and bringing back a bit more detail. I remember now why I tended to draw smaller pieces :-) This is my first piece where I worked all areas of the paper. 🎨

  • I went way too dark for the background in graphite. Thanks to blu-tack I was able to lift it off the paper. Happier now with where the background is going. The dark was pulling too much away from the chickadee. Before and after. 🎨

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  • Finished this digital drawing of a butterfly. I guess I have a butterfly series now. I do have a third to come. Playing with some new techniques on these drawings 🎨

  • Drawing update and my tools

    I finally had a chance to spend some more time on this chickadee. Still working away on the bark. I am playing with the idea of a background on the left. I think it may make the chickadee pop. I have included a pic of my tools. Yes, I use a wide range of pencils in hardness as well as size. I prefer mechanical pencils these days because the pencil balance remains the same regardless of lead length. You will also see blue tack for gently lifting off graphite as well as my tombow eraser and stumps for blending. 🎨

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