"Uncle Walt" 14" x 18" graphite pencil

I drew this as a demonstration in using the grid system to draw a portrait a la Chuck Close.

It is from a photograph of Walt Whitman taken by George Cox. I loved the rough face paired with the wild beard. It creates visual caricature for an eccentric poet.

His poem of the wild western expansion of manifest destiny, Pioneers! O Pioneers! is a favorite.

COME my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!