Dan Kirchoff
Drawing of the Week
I’ve been doing something called “Drawing of the Week”for some years now.
Listed here below, are drawings and a brief description for each week
starting with January, 2023. Drawings are done with my trusty Rotring
Artpen on a variety of paper.
01/07/2023
Ansley was our model at figure drawing on Saturday. She’s modeled for us before. I find it’s always nice to establish a friendship with a model, to get to know them a little. Often that will play into how the drawing will come out.
01/10/2023
I love drawing food, especially those tasty treats behind the glass at a local coffee shop or fancy food place. This croissant is from Dot’s in Lincolnville Beach, Maine. The staff was very amused at me being there and drawing.
01/20/2023
I’m starting a new column at The Free Press in midcoast Maine. It’s a drawing column with a paragraph of text under it. With this drawing, I write about the practicality (not) of owning a two-seater in Maine.
01/26/2023
Continuing my political cartoons in the local midcoast Maine newspapers. Lately, I’ve noticed an awful lot of farm fields have turned into solar fields. Is that a good thing ... or not?
02/02/2023
This is an experiment in perspective. The idea is that the car in the foreground is darker, and therefore closer, than the house in the background, which is lighter and therefore further away. Did I pull it off?
02/09/2023
Okay, it’s been a while since I’ve posted a drawing of a cat. Here is Nutter, who is always a willing model (as long as she can take a nap while posing).
02/11/2023
This is Kate, and while the figure drawing group wouldn’t let me pull a bit of her hair across her face, I added it in the drawing anyway (as I’m an illustrator and can make up stuff like that).
02/16/2023
The ubiquitous picnic table. Sometimes it's not what you draw, but rather how the light happens to be hitting it. Highlights with a dark bush behind it.
02/20/2023
The theme for this drawing is “Improvisation.” It’s for the registration for the biannual Maine Coast Men weekend retreat. More of a cartoon in style, than a pen-and-ink drawing.
02/28/2023
Dot’s in Lincolnville Beach is a new favorite. I can order a tasty croissant, then draw the croissants while eating it. Then I take the drawing to work and put it in the newspaper. Delicious all around.
03/09/2023
March is a nasty time of year in Maine. The weather is often terrible, and everyone is tired of winter. So we all get our coffee in the morning, sit at the window, and imagine greener Spring days to come.
03/18/2023
I did this political cartoon for our local Maine newspapers. I love the word “friggin’” as it’s the Maine state non-swear word. Also I love that Mainers blame everything on the weather. My editor made me change it.
03/25/2023
Ansley was our model at Saturday figure drawing. I liked how her head was up against the wall and angled back. Makes for a diagonal, which is always more dynamic. So I had to draw the wall in, natch.
03/30/2023
Downtown Belfast, Maine. This drawing has an almost impressionistic quality to it, something I don’t often have in my pen-and-ink work.
04/06/2023
Spring in this part of Maine is heralded in by the lowly crocus. They pop up around this time of year on the south side of most houses, usually between drifts of snow.
04/11/2023
in Belfast, Maine, tugboats are a fixture on the waterfront, what with the Front Street Shipyard in full operation. Always a treat to draw.
04/19/2023
My wife and I spent a week with my mom and sister on the Gulf Coast. Naturally, we had to visit the beach, and naturally, I had to sketch a bit of it.
04/26/2023
Back in Maine and back to work. Getting a cuppa coffee at Zoot Coffee in Camden and drawing the people who sit at the counter along the front window of the shop.
05/06/2023
Drawing at a men’s weekend retreat in the woods of Lincolnville, Maine. I tend not to draw the men from the front for confidentiality’s sake.
05/13/2023
Drawing Arianna at figure drawing. She’s a rather rebellious young artist, originally from Northern Maine. Always curious as to why people model for figure drawing groups....
05/18/2023
Commemorating Belfast, Maine, reaching its 250th birthday with a drawing of the iconic Gothic in downtown. This is one of my weekly political cartoons for The Republican Journal.
05/25/2023
This is the entrance to the old Waldo County courthouse in Belfast, Maine. Lately, I’ve been drawing doorways in town to put into the local newspaper.
06/01/2023
The lupines have been out in force this month with purple, pink and white flowered stalks appearing all over midcoast Maine. Generally, they don't come out until a little later, but like so much, they’re early this year.
06/08/2023
I live in the town of Belfast, Maine, where we have a lot of beautiful, old architecture in town. Drawing it straight-on is boring, so I always go for the obtuse angle.
06/14/2023
Here in Maine, we’ve had a very rainy June. In fact, I believe I can count on one hand how many sunny days we had in June. Therefore, our gardens, like this marigold, are a bit behind on things.
06/20/2023
Our cat Nutter likes to sit in the window in the summer. Looks like something has caught her eye. A squirrel maybe, invading the birdfeeders?
07/01/2023
This is my friend John, who plays a jazz trumpet. Every time I see him, I’m reminded I need to get practicing my clarinet so we can jam sometime. So many things to do ....
07/06/2023
This is a portrait they asked me to draw at the newspaper group I work at. Sarah Masters is the correspondent from the town of Washington, Maine.
07/15/2023
Ansley was our model at figure drawing. She’s modeled before. As is my custom, I tend to draw from behind, showing just a bit of the facial features. I find it more interesting than the usual, full-frontal portrait.
07/19/2023
I’ve probably mentioned drawing at Zoot Coffee in Camden before going to work. My favorite is to draw people sitting in the front window. It presents a backlit sort of thing that gives me some interesting shadows to work with.
07/28/2023
Earlier this year, I started an illustrated column called “Inksploitation,” published in our local newspaper. This drawing is for a column about the Fort Kent Blockhouse, built in the early 1800’s.
08/01/2023
Flashback time! I used to draw musicians a lot and this one dates from 2019. The local Celtic jams often include a pennywhistle, which challenges me to draw hands and fingers.
08/13/2023
A sidewalk scene in downtown Belfast where I live. It’s often nice in the summer to sit on one of the park benches in town and sketch the storefronts.
08/17/2023
A political cartoon drawn for The Camden Herald (midcoast Maine). There's a referendum question on the November ballot that proposes the state buying out Central Maine Power and running it as a state-owned cooperative.
08/26/2023
Arianna returned to Saturday Figure Drawing this week and it's always great to do her portrait. Still trying to reckon with how to draw her tatoos and piercings. I feel these are important to depicting someone accurately.
08/29/2023
I do an illustrated column for a local free weekly newspaper called “Inksploitation.” This drawing is from an entry talking about the end-of-summer harvest.
09/02/2023
Danica was our model for figure drawing. Lots and lots of hair, with her face poking out from it all. You can see just enough to tell who she is.
09/09/2023
Drawing Anna at Saturday figure drawing. Loved her big braid which is always a fun challenge to draw. I remeber seeing her at figure drawing weeks before, but as an artist rather than modeling.
09/18/2023
A young woman on her laptop at Zoot Coffee in Camden, Maine. Often, I’ll stop there to get a cuppa and a sketch in before work. I made a point of showing the drawing to my subject, who seemed to appreciate seeing it.
09/23/2023
My good friend and fellow singer Tim modeled for us at Saturday morning figure drawing. I often wonder why folks model for these groups. Back in the day, I used to model for grocery monty.
10/02/2023
This is the back end of the schoolner Olad, located in Camden Harbor, Maine. I still love to come down to the harbor front and draw for a half-hour before reporting to work. Drawing as meditation.
10/07/2023
Ashe was a hoot to draw at Saturday figure drawing. She wore a full-length bridal dress, and was all made up to match. I also love the little swirl of hair across her cheek.
10/17/2023
Getting my hand back into the acrylics. My hope is to expand to pein air work, preferably landscapes and the like, but I’m not there yet. Still painting produce on my desktop, which makes it easier to see details.
10/24/2023
Recently, one of the newspapers I work for contacted me and asked if I had a drawing of a pumpkin they could use to illustrate something. I didn’t have one, but whipped one up in about 30 minutes. Voila!
10/30/2023
The goofier the better. Often, when I’m in a public space, and I see someone with hair sticking up and ears sticking out, I really want to draw them! The crazier they look, the more I love it. Maybe I’m the crazy one.
11/04/2023
Drawing Ainsley at our Saturday figure drawing group. She always holds the pose well, returning to it after breaks. Her hair, though, changes a little after each break. Need to work fast on that.
11/10/2023
This is a drawing to go with a column I did for the newspaper about how Mainers are reluctant to fire up the wood stove in the Fall, waiting until it’s bitter cold before doing so.
11/18/2023
Always a pleasure drawing Ariana. The biggest challenge is drawing her tatoos. I want to include them, but I don’t want them to distract. Tricky, eh?
11/25/2023
I’m still doing political cartoons, this one concerning local garages’ right to repair cars. I was inspired by the 1950s West Side Story movie with dancing gangs. So, it’s not really a stretch to have dancing mechanics, right?
12/02/2023
Tim is one of my fellow singers, a baritone, and does a nice job posing at figure drawing. Plus, we get to catch up on what tunes we’re singing.
12/08/2023
We have a new columnist at the newspaper where I work, specializing in entertaining and such. The column is called “Host.” which explains pretty much everything. The writer is Matilda Rhodes, but that’s a pen name....
12/11/2023
Sometimes getting the cats to snooze and ignore me while I draw them is harder than it should be. Any noise has them looking around, so it was nice that Nutter napped soundly while I sketched, for a change....
12/20/2023
Working on an illustration project for a book, a map and scenes of Maine. Shown here, Mt. Kathadin (left) and a trawler/dragger on Penobscot Bay.
12/27/2023
My sister has two large poodle mix dogs, and drawing them can be a challenge. This one, Matia, sat still long enough for me to get his face and tail, but not much more.