Drawing Flies 52 Doctor Oatman. A really cool streamer pattern that just begs to be drawn or painted lovingly over the space of a day or two. Jeff and I had 30 minutes. Tech info: Pentalic paper with four different pens (Pigma in 02, 05, 1, and “brush tip”) and watercolor. I’ll add some more [...]

Drawing Flies 52 Strip Leech. A pattern of my father’s from a long time back (the glorious 70′s). This fly caught me my first ever 6+ pound brown trout (from Wyoming’s Green River) when I was 10 years old. It has done the deed all over the world, and for a broad spectrum of fish. [...]

Drawing Flies 52 Woolly Worm. A little break from the usual. When I drew/painted this, I was thinking of the dim, dusty corners of the old Weber Tackle building in Steven’s Point, Wisconsin. Weber is long gone, but my father still has sets of drawers from the place, bought many years ago. A lot of [...]

So, finally got the illustration issues sorted for the book series, and am neck deep in the new stuff right now (well, in the early mornings and late evenings, at least). I had a friend ask me if I do the illustrations like I do a dedicated drawing or painting for sale—in other words, one [...]

Just another Fishing the Film reject (Slide-Ball Slider this time). At least I’m getting some extra experience in fine-tuning certain aspects of the paper-drawing-to-vector-art process…. On a related note, there will be a “special offer” Fishing the Film announcement shortly!

A Bunyan Bug illustration from the first round of drawings that I did for the upcoming book, Fishing the Film. Once this drawing (and a bunch of others like it) were placed in the layout, we felt that it was too “heavy” for the look and feel of the text. So, it became a reject. Of [...]

Drawing Flies 52 Sand Shrimp (variation). This fly is for everyone dealing with the Gulf oil spill, and hoping that disaster can somehow be averted in the marshes and beaches of “sportsman’s paradise.” Tech info: Brush-tip Pigma pen with watercolor. Feeling like I got my “drawing mojo” back after two weeks of mediocrity! This one [...]

Drawing Flies 52 Caddis (Sparkle) Pupa. Pigma detail pen with watercolor. Tech info: I had gotten a request for one of my “old school” style pen-and-ink pieces, and while I didn’t have the time to do what I would normally do with intense detail work, this drawing has more little bits to it that last [...]

Those on the FF&W E-List already got an excerpt from the upcoming Fishing the Film book, but I figured that the blog could use it’s own little snippet, as well. This is from a story about fishing damselflies in the film, and includes one of the drawings from the book. …We had observed and photographed [...]

Drawing Flies 52 Hendrickson(s). Chisel-point pen with watercolor. Tech info: Pen and ink with watercolor on Pentalic paper. Long story as to why this fly was so late, but to get it done while it was still Thursday, I had to remind myself of the “Three Rules” of Drawing Flies 52: 1) Agree on a [...]

My favorite pieces of fly-fishing gear are reels. Just something about a beautifully made fly reel that holds my eye. Of the reels in my personal gear bag, there are some that stand out as continual favorites. One of those is my Ari ‘t Hart “Ari 1″ from the 1990s era of Ari’s design work [...]

Drawing Flies 52 Undertaker. Made with pen, paper, scanner and software. Tech info: Pen and ink on Pentalic paper, scanned into Photoshop for adjustment, exported to Illustrator, tweaked and colored. I wanted the Undertaker to have a sense of darkness about it that went beyond the fly itself, so I scribbled a thick black background [...]