These abstract vulture studies began as an exploration of shape, movement, and personality through minimal linework. Created with flowing marker lines and layered color edges, the pieces reduce the bird down to its essential forms while still capturing its posture, weight, and strange elegance.

I’ve always loved vultures artistically. They’re awkward, dramatic, intelligent, and somehow both ugly and beautiful at the same time. Their hunched silhouettes, stretched wings, and exaggerated necks create natural abstract shapes before you even begin stylizing them.

The first piece focuses on the back view of the bird, simplifying the body into large sweeping curves and layered arcs. The form becomes almost floral in places, with the neck and folded wings flowing together into one continuous movement. There’s very little detail, but the posture still feels unmistakably vulture-like.

The second drawing pushes further into motion and attitude. The wings spread outward in sharp, exaggerated curves while the head pulls forward with a tense, searching energy. The layered red, blue, and brown outlines create subtle vibration around the form, giving the drawing a restless, alive quality without needing shading or realism.

These pieces sit somewhere between animal study and abstract design with simplified organic forms, continuous flowing line work, minimal detail with expressive posture, and layered color edges to create movement and depth

What I enjoy most about this style is how little information is actually required to suggest a subject. A few curves, directional lines, and proportions can communicate far more than heavy rendering.

These studies also reflect something I return to often in my artwork—finding elegance inside creatures people normally overlook. Vultures are scavengers, awkward on the ground, and unsettling to many people, yet their shapes are incredibly graceful when reduced to rhythm and motion.

Sometimes the strangest subjects make the most interesting abstract art.

Many of my geometric pieces start in the simplest way possible: paper, markers, rulers, and a handful of circle templates scattered across my desk. No grand plan, no complicated concept—just lines, curves, and shapes beginning to interact with one another.

What I enjoy most about this process is the balance between structure and spontaneity. The tools create order—perfect arcs, measured angles, repeating circles—but the way those elements intersect is often completely intuitive. I draw a line, then another curve, then suddenly a pattern begins to appear that wasn’t planned at all. Once the drawing feels interesting, the second stage begins: translating that loose sketch into a digital composition.

The Hybrid Process: Hand First, Digital Second

Each of these pieces began as a marker drawing on paper. Using rulers, protractors, and circle templates gives the lines a clean geometric foundation, but the imperfections of hand drawing add a bit of organic movement. After the sketch is finished, I trace and refine it digitally—usually as vector artwork in Adobe Illustrator on the iPad. That stage lets me experiment freely with color, spacing, and balance while preserving the original structure of the drawing. This hybrid process is one of my favorite ways to work because it combines two very different energies:

• the spontaneity of hand drawing
• the precision of digital design

The result is artwork that feels both structured and alive.

Letting the Shapes Reveal Themselves

One of the most interesting aspects of these drawings is how the forms emerge naturally as the lines intersect. In some pieces, overlapping circles create unexpected shapes that almost resemble leaves or petals. In others, arcs sweep across the page like orbital paths or flowing ribbons of motion. Occasionally a single bold element becomes the anchor for the entire composition—like the red circular form that interrupts a field of intersecting curves.

Because I start without a rigid plan, the drawing often feels like a conversation between the tools and the page. A line suggests another line. A curve invites a circle. The composition slowly organizes itself through repetition and balance.

Exploring Color and Motion

Once the drawing is digitized, color becomes the next playground. Some pieces lean into bold contrasts—deep greens, bright oranges, and sharp lines that cut across the composition. Others use softer palettes that create a calmer, almost meditative rhythm where the motion of the lines becomes the main focus.

In one of the designs, a strong purple tone anchors the entire piece, creating a unified visual field where overlapping curves form organic shapes. In another, layered arcs drift across the surface in muted earth tones, emphasizing movement rather than symmetry.

The digital stage allows these variations to happen quickly. A simple sketch can evolve into multiple color explorations before the final version emerges.

Finding Rhythm in Repetition

Geometric abstraction has always fascinated me because simple shapes can produce surprisingly complex visual rhythms. A few circles, arcs, and lines repeated across a surface can start to feel almost musical.

That rhythmic quality is what I try to preserve in these pieces. Even though they are minimal in structure, the intersections and overlaps create patterns that guide the eye through the composition.

• Some viewers see planets and orbital paths.
• Others see leaves, petals, or flowing fabric.
• And sometimes they’re simply lines enjoying their own geometry.

A Series That Continues to Grow

These drawings are part of an ongoing exploration of geometric abstraction. The series continues to evolve as I experiment with new combinations of circles, arcs, and intersecting lines.

What began as simple marker sketches has become a growing body of work that blends hand drawing with digital refinement—an approach that keeps the process playful while still producing clean, modern designs.

It’s a reminder that even the most minimal marks on paper can lead to surprisingly complex visual ideas. Sometimes all it takes is a ruler, a circle template, and the willingness to see where the lines decide to go.

Over the years I’ve filled many sketchbooks with quick drawings of people. Not detailed portraits—just simple line work that tries to capture a moment or emotion.

These abstract portraits came from one of those sketchpads.

I started drawing them many years ago while experimenting with how little information a face needs in order to communicate a feeling. A few lines for the eyes, a curve for the mouth, the angle of a head—suddenly a personality appears. Sometimes they look thoughtful. Sometimes suspicious. Sometimes like they’ve just caught someone doing something they shouldn’t be doing.

The Family

One of my favorites is a piece I call The Family. It reminds me of those childhood moments when you knew you were in trouble and every adult in the room seemed to be watching you. The expressions aren’t detailed, but the tension is there.

That’s what I love about line drawing. With only a handful of strokes, the characters seem to pop off the page. When I was working on these, the faces appeared quickly—almost as if they were already there waiting to be revealed.

I ended up filling an entire sketchpad with these abstract portraits. Each one has its own personality, even though the drawings remain simple and minimal.

I’ve recently started sharing several of them on Pinterest, and I’ll continue posting more from the collection here as well. They’re a reminder that sometimes the simplest drawings carry the strongest emotions.

Thinking Man

This abstract figure is one of my favorite line people pieces because of the quiet character in the face. I think of it as my version of a thinker—introspective, calm, and a little removed from the world. These drawings begin as pencil sketches on a large sketch pad and are then carefully traced digitally in Adobe Fresco to become clean pen-style line drawings.

Inspired by Matisse and decades of working with abstract figures, this piece reflects how mood, age, and life experience subtly shape line and form. I’ve been creating variations of these abstract people for over 40 years, and it’s fascinating to see how each era leaves its mark.

Wondering

A simple yet deeply expressive line drawing inspired by the fluid minimalism of Matisse. I create many of these intuitive “line people,” and they often appear on the page before I fully understand them—emotional figures shaped by mood, gesture, and quiet honesty. This piece captures the feeling of contemplation and weariness through subtle shifts in line and form.

Drawn using clean, continuous lines, this minimalist illustration reflects how powerful simplicity can be in conveying character and emotion.