Mockup · placeholder artwork

Overhead view of Dan's drawing desk: a sketchbook, an envelope, a portrait in progress, tins of coloured pencils, a prize rosette and a phone.

Dan Killackey

Coloured pencil portraits · Ardnacrusha, Co. Clare · Commissions open

Everything on the desk opens. Try the sketchbook, or press 1 to 6.

The drawings

Swipe the drawing, or use the arrow keys. Commissions are marked; the rest were drawn for family.

41 hours, in one slider

Every portrait starts as a graphite underdrawing. Then the face, then everything else, in thin layers. Drag it along, or press play.

What the hours go on

About a fifth is the underdrawing, and it is the only stage where a feature can still move. The face takes the next third: skin is fifteen or twenty layers of colour, burnished flat. The rest is clothes, hair, fur, and whatever the photo was taken in front of.

Commission one

Drawn from your photo. You get a progress shot at the underdrawing stage, which is the last cheap point to move an ear. 4 of 6 Christmas slots gone.

How it works

  1. Send the photo. Pick a size below and say who's in it. A few photos are better than one.
  2. Dan replies with a price and a date. A 50% deposit holds the slot.
  3. You see the underdrawing. Say now if the nose is wrong. After this it's colour.
  4. Finished, signed on the back. Posted flat, board-backed, anywhere in Ireland, or collected in Ardnacrusha.
Paper size

Photos that draw well

Questions

How long does it take?

About 2 weeks for A5, 3 for A4, 5 to 6 for A3, from when the photo is agreed. Christmas books up by October.

How much?

Prices are Dan's to set. They'll go here, per size, so nobody has to ask.

Is it framed?

Unframed by default, so you can pick the frame. Framing can be arranged.

Can I give one as a gift?

Yes: a voucher card for a size, with the photo sent later.

Do you post abroad?

UK and EU, tracked. Further, ask.

About Dan

I'm Dan, from Ardnacrusha. I started drawing in primary school and never really stopped. Most of what I draw is family: old hands, a cat on a lap, the good armchair. Coloured pencils and markers, built up in thin layers until the paper won't take any more.

By day I study product design at the University of Limerick.

Marker rendering of three desk lamp concepts.

Desk lamp concept sheet. Placeholder.

Get in touch

hello@dankillackey.ie, or a message on Instagram.

Texaco, 2022

Overall winner of the 68th Texaco Children's Art Competition, for Isolation, a coloured pencil portrait of his granduncle Mick White with the cat. A Special Merit in 2020 before that, for a portrait of his grand-aunt Margaret.

“A short story in visual imagery.”
Gary Granville, adjudicator
Photo of Isolation goes here.
Dan to send the scan.

Instagram

New drawings go up there first, usually with the photo they were drawn from.

@dan.killackey
@dansart__ (older work)