Have a look at these stunning images, then look closer. They may look like great black and white photographs with some clever Photoshop editing, but they're not. They're hand-drawn pencil sketches, by a very talented artist with a love of mountain biking.
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The drawings are the work of pencil artist Mark Everson. Each drawing takes days to produce. Literally days; just doing the outline on some of the images he's produced takes 10 hours or more.
Precision, patience and a very steady hand are important skills, and Everson painstakingly plans out his images before adding stunningly detailed shading to produce the depth and tone that makes the images almost indistinguishable from photographs.
Everson is also a keen mountain biker, and has put his talent into producing these incredible photo realistic images inspired by his love of the sport.
If you do fancy putting your creative skills to use in the world of hyper-real mountain bike art (or indeed any subject matter you fancy), then Everson has some handy tips to get you started.
- Patience. If you're getting frustrated that a drawing is taking too long, you need to slow down!
- Patience. Do you complete drawings in less than ten hours? The outline of this piece took 10 hours.
- Patience. Double check everything, proportions, dimensions, values, etc!
- Patience. If you can finish a fairly good drawing on Monday, you could probably finish a fantastic drawing on Friday!
- Subject matter. If you decide to draw a bike gear component pick a single speed model!
Are you spotting a theme emerging?
If you want to see more of Everson's work, then pop over to his Instagram account or Facebook page.
