Start of Nut

Started another small 4"x4" painting tonight. This one I am actually recording while I paint it so I can speed it up for a time lapse. This is my depiction of the Egyptian goddess Nut, goddess of the sky. GALAXY HAIR.

Third Eye Revisited

Wasn't too happy with how the third eye in this piece was rendered, so I revisited it. Added in the wings, made the eye more graphic.

I finished Morrigan tonight. However, I do need to do another coat of cadmium red on the arrows I added in to make them more opaque. Red is so finicky...

Sneak Peek

Here's a sneak peek at a teeny-weeny (4"x4") painting of The Morrigan. Felt like taking an artsy shot, so I did!

Beep beep make way for headway!

Howdy, been doing a lot of painting lately, but not much updating. Here's a new piece I started this week I have yet to properly name. Flotsam? I dunno... It's 18"x24", my usual acrylic/oil combo. It's very minimalist, but I'm loving the hell out of this piece so far!

And here's a closeup of the face:

Hurricane Follow-up

I am absolutely thrilled to have power back! When Sandy hit on Monday, John and I were comfortably watching movies together while I painted when the power went out. I cursed, washed my brushes, and hoped for the best. Four days later while waiting for John to come save me from my heavy case of cabin fever, the lights went back on! Since then I jumped back into painting, the only thing I really missed. Except maybe the heat and use of the percolator...

I waaant to say she's done? It's up for critique, for sure! I love how the hair turned out, but the leaves and flower were tricky. I'm still giving those an inquisitive glare.

Haha, oh man, this looks awful at this stage, but, here it is. There will be glowing magical symbols in this one, a halo around her head. It is so far from being done...

Working on some smaller, 4"x4" pieces for my upcoming gallery show at Forest to Shore. Need to do a beastly sized piece as a focal point as well... Gotta brainstorm!

Rapunzel Again

Finished the face! It's been forever, but hey. The hair will be drawn in, need to render the leaves and the flower and add in more color and glazes into the white to make it more interesting.

Need to do a lot of work in the next 2.5 months for an upcoming gallery show I will be doing with 3 other artists. I'm so excited!

Rapunzel

Had a marathon painting day today! Started a small painting of Rapunzel. I'm all over the place with paintings right now...

Back in the Game

Hey! Been a little while... August was a month full of trial and error, and experimentation. I've reconnected with a few books, stories, and characters I've always--or recently--loved. This painting in particular is revisiting one of my favorite short stories: Kaleidoscope by Ray Bradbury. As my favorite author of all time, I find it very appropriate to illustrate a work of his in the midst of his passing.

This is my first time painting space; very exciting! I've utilized NASA's wonderful archive of photographs to supply reference for this piece. If you have yet to take a look, you should!

Painted Sleds

The opening for the Painted Sleds show at Forest to Shore Gallery was tonight! None short of fun, and packed with surprises! About all the people in this photo are mine or John's family. I loved seeing everyone!

There was a wall everyone was welcome to paint on throughout the course of the night. I left my mark with some random lady. Amanda painted Patchy (pink hat) and John did Groose.

As I said, the night was hella fun. I'm exhausted after being there for a good 4 hours, but it was totally worth being asked to take part in a three-man show later this year! So soon, I'll have to work my ass off to get enough work ready for then, but I'm excited!

Third Eye Complete

MacGyvered a lighting set up a few minutes ago and finally "properly" photographed this. Hooray! Enjoy!

Deck Progression

About time I post how progress is going with this piece! I can't exactly say how much longer it will be before this is done, but considering I have a week-ish more to work on it I'm going to make sure not much goes overlooked. I'm pleased with how it's coming along. It's difficult to maintain the wood grain around the figure. There are like, three spots I wish I could take some sandpaper to, but they're really only noticeable to me.

In the middle of painting this evening, something just popped out at me about this piece that just was... WOAH. She looked like Zooey Deschanel. Completely unintentional, I swear!

Estate Haul

Went to an estate sale after hearing from John's mother that it was at a house of a former artist. This always gets me excited because I have no idea what they have or what I can find. I was pleasantly surprised!

In total I got eight frames, an old aluminum watercolor pan, and two tubes of Rembrandt oil paints. Two of the frames I picked up were a little worse for wear, and all were terribly dusty and were clearly homes to spiders at some point in time... But, after a few hours dusting them off, wiping them off with watered down bleach to to kill any mold, they look awesome!

 

John also picked up this band saw, which we're both psyched about because now I can easily cut masonite without risking exacto injuries to my hands, and he can saw through branches in a fraction of the time it takes for him to take a hand saw to one! Fantastic haul, we're such happy campers! :)

Hooray!

I think she's done! Ready for critique, at least. Need to varnish it once it's dry to unify everything, then photograph it. I also got a decent amount of work in on the skateboard, in spite of being debilitated a majority of the day by a massive migraine...

Bought a frame today for Third Eye as well. It's always the cherry on top to see a painting framed!

Doin' Thangs

Man, what a long day... Started off by driving with John to Danbury to get Brazillian food at Mina's Carne. Ooooh, plantains are works of art in of themselves... Anyway, after getting back I jumped into painting. First threw down the first layer of oils on the skateboard, then a few hours back with this babe. Afterwards, I worked on Katniss for some time as well. Just jumped from painting to painting all day long. Totally worth it, got iced coffee after I called it a night ;)

Deck Progress

Here is how I spent my Fourth of July: painting all day, watching Red vs. Blue while John finished playing Metroid Prime. Heard the fireworks outside that the neighbors were setting off. Good enough for me!

Funny how the curvature of the board distorts her face and foot and makes it look all terrible in the photograph. Trust me, it doesn't actually look that anatomically weird in person.

Plans from here is to render the skin, the folds on the cloth, and once it's done being painted to add in a gold leaf halo around her head and into the yellow areas of the roses.

What the Deck: Resolved!

And here is what I came up with! Black dress, red roses, gold leaf. Surrounding the figure I will let the wood grain show through. Waiting on this for a few more hours, it looks so weird to me now because it's such a curved, long shape...

Third Eye WIP

Coming along. Blocked in stuff, mushed stuff up... Gonna do, gonna do.

What the Deck?!

Picked this up today from Forest to Shore to paint for their upcoming skateboard deck show in August. Ah, yeah... no true idea what to really paint on this! I have some idea; naked ladies, flowers... stuff. Any ideas?

The format is what's really messing with me, it's way longer than what I remember skate decks to be, it's about 3' long by 10" wide looking at it right now ('cause, it could totally change shape while I'm not looking). I'll fiddle around with it in my head, but if anyone has anything to suggest I'm all ears :)

Third Eye

Taking a brief recess from my Katniss painting. Had to get this image out of my head, first. Underpainting is a little derp, but I'll whip it into shape ;)

IMC Day 6

Here she is at day six. Wanted to try to paint as long as I could tonight, but I'm too sick to put any more time into it. It's been unfortunate that this year something has been going around and there have been a lot of us getting sick this week. Personally, I've been feeling incredibly tired, achey, and been unable to focus--both mentally and visually. I feel sympathy for Chris Burdett, who has been in his room with a terrible flu all week long... Tonight someone else nearly fainted from dizziness after our last lecture and had to be led back to his own dorm room. Crazy stuff!

Sickness aside, I dug in today, and am pretty happy with the results I've gotten thus far. I probably won't be painting tomorrow morning, but all in all at this point I'm thrilled with what I have so far, and will have to go home, overcome whatever illness I have, and finish this baby!

IMC Day 5

Finally dug in with oils today! Focused on the face, and am  really happy with the subtlety of colors I'm achieving. Redid the face completely, so that's where all my time today was invested. I actually made some minor changes right after I took this picture. I'm just sad that these photos don't do the paint any justice at all... I mean, really, really don't; holy crap.

Tomorrow will be a big day--or so I plan--to lay in most everything else. I'm super tired now, and am very excited to go in tomorrow and start fresh in the morning!

IMC Day 4

Another slow-ish day. Primarily did a lot lot lot of glazing and small detail stuff in the bark. I also came to a halo concept that I liked. Very Wayne Barlowe! Almost, not completely...

Tomorrow morning I'm going to begin rendering Katniss. I decided to call this an early night to get a good night sleep, as I've felt super tired since breakfast. Also, I have pinkeye in my left eye! Wonderful. At least it's not the cold that's making rounds, I'd rather have a freakishly red eye than feel groggy and congested.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I had a wonderful portfolio review with Dave Palumbo. Today I also had Lauren Panepito give me some insight and both reviews are making me feel confident in my work and reinforce that I'm doing the right thing. Time for rest!

IMC Day 3

Here I am at the end of day three. I finished the under-painting early afternoon-ish, and started to lay in color after dinner. The upper, darker portion of the painting is way too cool so I made a note to myself to glaze in some sap green tomorrow morning. I refrained from doing so tonight because I didn't want to just keep working and end up doing something really stupid. I can go back to it with fresh eyes tomorrow.

Pretty excited, gotta say! starting to come together, and the parts I'm a little hesitant with--the color of the tree trunks, mostly--I know what to do with.I didn't expect to get quite this far today, so I can't wait to see how it will be at the end of tomorrow. I'm exhausted.

IMC Day 2

Today seemed like such a slow progress day, but I got quite a bit done, now that I'm looking at what I have. Bright and early this morning I mounted my drawing at 8:30 or so. Off and on waiting for it to dry, sanding, putting another layer of matte medium on it. Lather, rinse, repeat.

While I waited in between drying and lectures I worked on a color study, and then felt satisfied enough to start the under-painting. I hadn't originally intended to begin with a brown under-painting for the background--for in the color study I jumped in directly with the blues/greens--however I would love to add some brown undertones and blah blah blah... But, I feel I'm at a safe point to stop for the night and come back in the morning with fresh eyes. Until then...

IMC Day 1

So here's the result from day 1: I had critique at 11 this morning with Scott Fischer, Doug Gregory, Boris Vallejo, and Irene Gallo. They stated this was a solid composition, and the only revisions were to change the angle of the large branch behind her and make it thicker, put the littlest bit of tension on the bow string, and to have the bird (that I added in last night and taped to the piece) oriented so it faced Katniss. Scott put it so aptly that I needed to "flip the bird", and you bet I did! I also fiddled with the halo idea for the hell of it before I decided to return to the dorm.

Spent a healthy 2 hours napping after lunch to make up for the lack of sleep from these past 2 nights. This is an early night as well, putting off mounting the piece for tomorrow. It's going to be a busy week, so I might as well get in a decent night's rest while I still can. More to come tomorrow!

IMC Prologue

So here's what I have for the critique session for this year's Illustration Master Class. I'm not too savvy with digital, so I did what I could with my laptop's trackpad to give an idea of the color scheme. Better than nothing! I have the colors matched with physical paint, so it's all good, planned out, et cetera. I just want to throw out that the model is my student, Emma, who is a big The Hunger Games fan and convinced me to read the series. I like to think this is a good way to thank her and show her how awesome she is! (But all my students are equally awesome, of course.)

Heading out tomorrow morning around 9 a.m. with John. It's going to be a long, but fast week! I will take progress shots of the piece as the week goes by on a daily basis--more or less, depending on how much I get done and how tired/busy I am. Stay tuned!

We Drew a Band

Tamieka: "I'm not sure what to do... I think I'm going to draw a band."
Me: "Wait... draw a band? Not, make--hm, okay, yeah, I'm in on this."

(guitarist drawn by me, drummer drawn by Tamieka, singer drawn by Stephan)

Red Riding Hood

She's done, been done, but I only had a chance to photograph it today.

Lately I've been doing preliminary work for the incoming Illustration Master Class. It's so close! I'll post the drawing, sketches, everything here soon. Once the week begins this coming Saturday it will be fun to see how the painting progresses!

Closing in...

The finish line is fast approaching. Added in a branch to add some depth as a third element to balance things out a bit. Think I'll need to add a little more branch below the current one. Not sure yet... Critique welcome!

She Lives!

These wolves are taking some time, but, they're coming along. Going to be adding in a branch or two or three or however many towards the top. Still much to do, but very much along!

Also, have an exquisite corpse done at the diner tonight :B

IMC First-Fiddlings

So here's the concept I'm running with for this year's IMC assignment. I've chosen to paint Katniss from The Hunger Games, in a tree scouting out the arena. Mulling about the idea of a fiery halo around her head and on the tip of her arrow, but that'll be discussed during the critique session.

Time to collect all the reference I need and start with the better sketch!

By Jove, I think it's done!

With the help of some fine folks at Drawn Today, friends, my brother, and John, I made a few tweaks and can call it done! I lightened the skull, fixed the sausage-fingers, glazed green into the mist and splattered some white into it. Letting it dry, then going to put some retouch varnish on it, and frame it. After taking a final hi-res photo of it, of course.

Relic, Pre-Critique

"Done", as in ready for critique. If anyone has any comments concerning subtle fixes for the piece, I want to hear them!

Totoro

This is what happens when all my students are occupied with their own projects and I'm left with a crayola watercolor set and a pencil. For not having seen the movie in a few years, I don't think I did too bad...?

Almost...

Almost done... Changed the faceted stone to a cabochon beause whoo-boy... Need to glaze in some yellow/red into the bracelets, lighten up the darker half of the skull a smidge, and really work into the stone and make it pop.