This is a photograph of Ernie and Pittsburgh Steeler Owner, Dan Rooney the day his #70 jersey was retired. He is the only Steeler to have that honor.

Here is day one. This is an 11″ x 14″ portrait done in pencil. Here is the piece as it laid on my drawing desk. This shows my heavy-weight illustration board taped off. You can see the reference photo that I worked from along with my German Faber-Castell 4B, 6B and 8B drawing pencils, kneaded eraser and blending stick.

Here is a close-up of the first day’s work.

This is day two.

Day three.

Day four.

Day five. Here I am removing the drafting tape from the final. This gives the piece a very clean edge.

Here is the final. The dark background took hours of drawing to achieve. I used a soft stick of charcoal. I draw it in then rub the charcoal with a soft tissue. It takes several layers to get the area dark enough until I am satisfied with the results.

This is the Rooney Collector Card that I created from my original pencil drawing. All the card elements are created on my MAC computer using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. The cards are printed in California in a limited edition run of only 1000.

Thanks for looking! Stay tuned, there are many more of my works in progress to come.

Denny