sketchbook #15

Electioneering (sketchbook #14)

Tonight's drawing. The likeness was way off but I kept at it and now it seems to work okay. Sometimes, if I go into enough detail, I lose a single center of interest, it's something I struggle with on most of my artwork.
I like to draw and have gotten away from it with all of the other projects underway.

Pointer (alpha)

Upon request, I have the first version of the below picture here. Almost all of my digital painting work is done in Corel Painter. I initially(and probably still do) thought the beach scene would be a little more interesting, but gave it up in favor of a easier though less interesting background. I would love to hear which you think is more appealing. Also, on the right is a drawing/finish contrast, my new underdrawing method is pretty quick and messy with the felt tip pen tool.

Pointer

The newest digital painting. I guess I just like faces. They are interesting. I worked hard for a cool background but in the end failed and had to give up. Actually I have very limited interest in backgrounds( obviously). I usually finish the character then it's like a race to decide on and complete a background, I have about 1 hour before my interest trails off and I give up. I was working on a beach scene, once again choose your own adventure when it comes to the story.

Hat tip to Joe for the E.T. finger idea.

Gold

My latest. Oil on board 18"x24"

Figure Drawing #4

This is a recent figure drawing I did in the class I taught. Unfortunately the class was only 2 hours, which is no where near enough time to do a full drawing. Plus, being the teacher limited my time even more. But I revisited this one for 30 minutes last night, cleaning up lines and things. Done in Nu pastel on 18" x 24" paper.

Sketchbook #11

A new drawing. I love to draw in my sketchbook, and may have already said that I attribute any talent I have to my sketchbook. I am really interested in faces, likenesses, this is Steven Spielberg. Hopefully I've captured it, I also really like the very subtle caricature/stylization, so subtle that you almost don't recognize it without looking closely.

Gray

Finally the painting of this previous drawing. I like to paint them then they sit around for a few weeks while I decide whether I like them or not. I am okay with this one, but I took this picture using the flash from the edge and really like the light right side progressing to dark(the actual painting doesn't have that effect) so I think I will get back and rework the background. I would be happy to hear peoples opinions.

Figure drawing #3

I have been doing a lot of figure drawing work lately, including teaching a college course. I've liked it, and actually have noticed some improvement in my drawings, maybe just by thinking more about some of the process.

Figure drawing #2

A figure drawing I did. Sometimes I do large 18"x24" drawings from photos or drawings of great artists as a way to practice my linework. I find if I do one the night before a real life drawing I get much better results. It also helps to have more time, not being rushed between models breaks, etc. One problem I am still working on is my habit of high key drawing, I never get darks as dark as I would like, this drawing benefits from the contrast edit tool.
This is done from a reference I have from William Whitaker. A great artist. Check out an interesting and useful demo of his painting technique here.
Also, for some unbelievable examples of flawless figure drawings, see Adam Ford's figure drawing sight here. I highly recommend copying his work for great instruction.

Sketchbook #10

I've been away but here is a drawing. It is Scooter Libby if you know who that is. I have always preferred profiles.

Figure drawing #1

This is a drawing from Friday's 3-hour session. I used Nupastel. It is the first one I have been happy with for a while. I really feel like life-drawing is the weekest link of all of my different art styles that I work in. I don't want to vote it off but it really needs to shape up. Actually I really enjoy it. Usually I am decently pleased with a drawing but I put it away and come back to it a few hours later and I can suddenly see all of the terrible drawing problems.

Charcoal

A charcoal sketch out of my sketchbook. I like to draw with Nupastel, charcoal, Conte because of the ability to smudge. I do a first pass then wipe over it with a paper towel, then continue to refine and pull out highlights with an eraser. Important: spray it with crystal clear or hairspray when you are done or you will have a mess.

Sketchbook #9

Another dip into the old sketchbook. Just a typical page. I just draw whatever strikes me as interesting in whatever space is available. I like to expirement a little, trying a different approach with each. You'll notice the left one is a little more graphic/shape oriented, the bottom more focused on line, and the top a little stylized and stretched.

Drawing awaiting paint

A new drawing I am doing in preparation of a new oil painting.I am all of the sudden having trouble finding the right size Masonite board or I may have been finished with the painting by now. I really like painting on board because it allows for so much of my style to show, without fighting the canvas texture. I am excited to get started with this one because I am happy with the drawing, that is probably the most important thing to keep you going with a new painting through the long hours.

Manly women

A painting done for the Avalanche blog. I don't know where my crazy ideas come from. I just start to paint and the ideas develop with the drawing. I used a man as reference which is still a little too apparent, though some of the manly features work well for the subject.

Kristina

You may recognize this painting as a color version of this previous painting. I thought it would be a great idea to do a black and white painting to get all of the values out of the way before I started into the color beast. I learned that is not a good way to paint. I went over the face with the colors then continued onto the rest of the painting only to discover the face was very very gray. So basically I ended up doing 3 or 4 layers of paint to get what I wanted. The black and white underpainting turned into a huge time waster, maybe it could work with a sepia tuned value study?

New Brush

A quick paint up of the previous drawing. I tries out the Cali brush style. Now obviously they are nowhere near her brilliant use of colors but I am happy the direction.
It was really a very handy tool. I loved the colors that I got from the method and I will absolutely use it in the future, at least to get my preliminary colors. It helps by gradually building up colors in a direction rather then putting down the color immediately, and it follows art's most universal rule of working "general to specific".

Sketchbook #7

A new drawing. Often in my sketchbook I will just find an interesting face to draw and really go into detail with it. Then I just slap on a more simple graphic body to complete the picture. In this one I also did a more detailed hand, I think it ties things together a little to have the major points done in detail. I really went into a lot of detail in some really subtle parts on the face, thats maybe why I like the .3 lead I can really do tiny light details.

Kaitlyn

A new painting. I hope the black and white isn't getting too tedious, I have some color paintings on the way. I really like how this one turned out, but I don't think it will ever translate into the digital format though.
It is oil on board, 16" x 20". I usually go one basic pass to put down all of the basic drawing work, it has very soft edges and not much detail. Then it takes 3 or 4 passes to slowly tighten up all of the edges and details. I would like to do looser work, I plan on going that direction, but a lot of times I just get stuck trying to make it as perfect and beautiful as possible.
Oh well, It's nice enough that I'll make it my new website welcome picture.

Shooter

A new digital painting. I don't really know the reasoning behind it. I sometimes just start drawing then go whatever direction hits me first. To save me the trouble of a real background I just scrub in some colors that will accentuate the primary characters design. Done in painter, like pretty much all of my digital work.

New project

Here I have my drawing for a new painting I will be working on. I usually try to do my painting from a transferred drawing. It is a convenient way to work. You can work out all of the drawing problems, composition, perspective, sizing, before you are stuck into the painting work. I think this is headed into a good direction, so we'll see where it ends up.

This is not a co-worker

A quickly done painting that isn't quite satisfying but I don't want to spend the time to figure out why. This is not a co-worker. Any resemblance is purely coincidental, the person depicted does not exist.

Oil painting experimentation

A new painting I have been working on. Oil on masonite board, with quite a bit more texture than I usually work with( you can see the texture in the detail image at left). I am going to try something crazy with this painting and paint the colors over it. My past black and white paintings had the same intentions initially, but they turned out too nice to paint over. I think the added work figuring out the values and brushwork before the colors, should cut the things I need to worry about in half, right? Stay tuned to see if it works out, I should have a color version soon.

Also, I have made a few minor changes but if you haven't looked through my lists of Great artists and Great living artists you should. If you like my work, you will find similar but much better work with these links, and maybe a few you haven't yet seen.

Sketchbook #6

I work almost exclusively in pencil with a .03 size mechanical pencil. I have no real reason except for that I have become accustomed to it. There are some really nice things like the tight clean lines and I don't need to sharpen. but it makes it a little difficult to shade large areas, thus the trailing off crosshatching as I lose patience. Cross hatching is an interesting thing, I always wanted loose spontaneous lines, I worked at it till one day in high school they just became spontaneous.

Sketchbook #5?

A few new drawings from the old sketchbook.

Cast painting

Finally a finished version of the statue painting I did. It's about time I put up a post of some classical non-digital art. It was fun and challenging to paint, especially around the face with all of it's detail and subtle color changes. I am still learning how to take good photographs of my work, this doesn't really do it justice I assure you. The background is a flat color but it all catches the light different to produce this lovely ocean wave background, maybe it's a happy accident. Whatever, just don't click on them because they look pretty good as small icons.

Shoreline

Here's a new digital painting. I like how the face turned out, but backgrounds always bring me down. I just don't have the patience for the detail and have a hard time suggesting things with simple strokes. I really think I need to put more time into the concept. I usually go with whatever comes to me as I am working. I thought this was a good idea with the orange line, but maybe that confuses the light source, the moon maybe? Hope you like it.
And, drop by my website. I've added some detail images if you click on paintings.

Vote for your favorite

I thought since it is election season in America, I would hold my own official vote. Don't worry this computer voting system is completely save. Here are two Warren Buffet caricatures. Please vote on which version you like more. I think the one with all the bells and whistles is leading by a large margin in the exit polls but this is a democratic poll. The winner will control my digital painting folder and keep immunity at the tribal council.

Painting practice

I guess this is maybe a post more appropriate before Halloween, oh well. This is a nice picture I found somewhere and decided to paint. I hate it when I paint things like this just for practice and they turn out nice(in my opinion), then I am stuck with a painting that's not really my own. Practice, I guess.
I included a detail picture. I've had a hard time getting good pictures of the detail in my paintings. Digital pictures will never do justice to the real thing.