UA-123747120-1

Charcoal Pencil Portrait Artist
      ... What Art Means to Me

It's me, Doug Boomhower. I wasn't always a charcoal pencil portrait artist, although I started drawing at the age of three or four - I can't remember exactly when.

Young Doug Boomhower, charcoal pencil portrait artist

Like most kids, I drew cartoons, animals, trees, flowers, houses, birds, and more birds.  I just drew ... a lot.

At night when I was supposed to be sleeping, I would listen until the teacher that my parents rented a room to, came home each evening.

I purposely left my drawings on the stairs and listened for her comments as she passed by. How else can you get objective criticism at the age of four?  Parents are biased and will always tell you the drawings are good, even if they are not.  Thanks to some very positive, objective reviews, I continued to draw.

When I was eight years old (until about age 11), I took private oil painting lessons, but I didn't have the patience to wait for the paint to dry. I wanted more immediate gratification.

So! I went back to basics...back to pencil and paperback to black and white...

Oh, and around age 13, I started playing in a rock band, which lead to studies in jazz and jazz musicians, the subjects of most of my work.

Now, skip ahead a few years... 


I became both a professional pencil portrait artist, and musician. My life in music accounts for my interest in doing
portraits of musicians.   As a musician I gained insights into the world of music, which proved helpful in the convincing creation of musician portraits.

I chose to do large charcoal drawings of my heroes from the "Jazz" era of the 1940's and 1950's.

Of course, my interest in art extends to all areas of portraiture.


Pencil Portrait Artist At Work


As you see here, I'm swimming in a sea of 
black and white sketches.

As a charcoal pencil portrait artist, I've always found drawing faces to be the most challenging, and since age four, I've drawn a "few". 


I've displayed my artwork at jazz festivals in the United States and Canada.

New Orleans was particularly great because our booth was very near the Gospel tent...entertainment day and night. The young visitors thought these were "cool drawings", an appropriate comment considering they were drawings of cool jazz musicians.

In Monterey, California, my wife was thrilled to see Clint Eastwood and Dave Grusin on stage in a live forum, answering questions about jazz music in the movies.

New Orleans Jazz Festival


Charcoal Pencil Portrait Artist at work? 

Here I am, sitting at my art booth.

I'll admit I'm not working very hard, but the Neville Brothers were performing in the gospel tent and everyone disappeared from the exhibit area! 



Thanks for visiting my web site.

If you would like to share comments or provide feedback that will help me improve my site, please fill in the simple and secure form below.

Although it may not be possible to respond to every email, I assure you that every message received will be read.

Your email address is safe on this site. In short, your contact with learn-to-draw-expressively.com is considered private and confidential and I will never sell or give away your email address, nor will I send you unsolicited emails. 

You can read the learn-to-draw-expressively.com Privacy Policy here. 

However, if you are still uncomfortable providing your e-mail address, you can keep up-to-date by subscribing to my Learn to Draw Mini-Blog.

You no longer have to return to learn-to-draw-expressively.com to see if there is anything new because the information will come to you. Plus, you don’t have to provide an e-mail address!

How do you get started? It’s simple.

Right-click on the orange RSS button (see left column) and then paste the URL into your RSS Reader.

Or, click on the My Yahoo!, MSN or Google button if you have a personalized home page and prefer to read the blog updates there.

If you are new to RSS or blogging and need more information, click on the “What’s an RSS Feed?” link just below the orange buttons to find out more. 

Contact Me Directly . . .

Please note that all fields followed by an asterisk must be filled in.

Please enter the word that you see below.

  



As a charcoal pencil portrait artist, if you asked about my philosophy of art and drawing, I would say:

Draw honestly, and strive for power, clarity and emotion.



I hope you are able to glean some insight from
learn-to-draw-expressively.com

I will continually be adding new information so please visit again.

Doug Boomhower 



To search my site, enter your search term in the box below, and click on the Search button. (Google ads may appear at the top of the results page ... your search results will be just below.)

Google
 



Return from Charcoal Pencil Portrait Artist 
to Learn to Draw Expressively Home Page
 

Share this page:
Enjoy this page? Please pay it forward. Here's how...

Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it?

  1. Click on the HTML link code below.
  2. Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.