Pencil Artist of the Week: Bob Carriedo

This week’s featured pencil artist is Bob Carriedo, a pencil artist from the United States who creates fluid pencil works that call back to the Surrealists of the early 20^th century. His landscapes and portraits draw inspiration from Salvador Dalí, André Breton, René Magritte, and the other icons of the movement, but each drawing is realized in a style that is uniquely his own.

Max Ernst defined Surrealism as an attempt “to resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality.” When viewing Bob’s work, you can see the where these conditions collide and, like the works of any Surrealist artist, it is difficult to tell where the dream ends and reality begins.

In the landscape “Bones” (shown below), the viewer sees bones, anatomies and skulls that could almost exist in the real world, were they not distorted by space and time. Similarly, his drawing “Image 7” features a structure that might be seen at the microscopic level, until further inspection reveals what appear to be bones, sinews and other organic elements.

Drawings by Pencil Artist Bob Carriedo

Bob uses a combination of 0.5mm mechanical pencils and graded pencils ranging from 5H to 4B to create his drawings. He prefers smooth, heavy paper, usually 65lb – 100lb, and uses kneaded art erasers, Faber-Castell pencil erasers, cotton swabs, and blending stumps to create his desired effects.

If you want to see more of Bob’s work, you can check out his DeviantArt profile here.

What do you think Pencils Blog readers? Do you know someone who should be featured as our pencil artist of the week? Let us know in the comments!

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