Pencil Artist of the Week: Mike O'Connell

This week’s featured artist is Mike O’Connell, a pencil artist living in a rural village in Staffordshire, UK. Mike has captured images of David Bowie, Jack Nicholson, Bob Dylan, Keith Richards and more in graphite form. On average, each drawing takes anywhere from 18 to 25 hours, but the results of this labor of love make it worth every minute.

Mike uses Derwent drawing pencils ranging in hardness from H to 4B, along with Staedler pencils and other tools of the trade to recreate iconic images of history, film and stage. His creative process, like the process of many pencil artists, starts with a rough sketch of his subject. Mike then covers part of the sketch with one or more pieces of paper, sometimes only revealing a small corner of his drawing, and proceeds to add detail, darken, and shade it. As he works, he moves the paper, revealing more and more of drawing until he has revealed the entire finished product.

In my eyes, Mike’s drawings stand apart from the works of many other pencil artists for two reasons. First, the level of detail in his drawings is astounding. Each drawing looks as if it could have been developed in a dark room. The second reason, and perhaps more impressive of the two, is the deepness and richness of the blacks in his drawings. A 4B pencil is a very dark pencil, but the contrast in Mike’s drawings is simply incredible. If you don’t believe me, see for yourself.