Blog Overhaul, New mini-Blog, and Latest News

I'm reconciled to the fact that websites need an occasional 'face lift' - am pretty happy with the latest look; and...
after a lot of pondering - I've added a second 'mini' sketch blog  called "The Truffle Tin"

Just letting loose and doodling is great for loosening up; I do a lot of this, and sometimes wonder why all of these little treasures have to hide away in the mounds of sketchbooks and loose papers I've collected!  It's nice to also veer from specific styles and techniques, and be really free and experimental - so I felt a second blog would be ideal.
 
 Latest News --

Value Studies!

It fascinates me the amount of varying opinions of mentors, friends, and colleagues on the importance of using strong value in artwork.  I think some of my earlier work didn't translate well enough because perhaps I worked a bit too light - and also because I'm no expert at dealing with scanning and web color profiles.  After some revisiting and practice, I believe my perspective has improved on use of darker values, but I still tend to prefer a certain, linear look.  Check out these examples...

Butterfly Queen re-paint

(Before on the left, After on the right)

Who Are You? re-paint

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Butterfly Queen

Still working on using the traditional tools  - pen, ink, watercolour & brushes, despite the lack of an 'undo' key! I love the what the old fashioned dip pen nibs can do, and free flowing lines.  For me drawing with a real pencil or pen is much more intuitive than drawing with the wacom, although digital has many other advantages.

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Linework vs Painting - Sketches as Art

I love to draw, more than I love to paint, probably.  Maybe.  But that conflicts with a love for color, and what I can do with watercolor paint, or photoshop textures, or copic markers.  The problem for me comes when people think that a painting is only done when you've covered up your linework.  WHY the hate for pencil lines?  Why do we have to erase them all?  Who made the rule that pencil lines mean it is not "Fine Art?"  Who decided that linework=Illustrator, paint globs=Fine Artist???  I'll thank my lucky stars for artists that prove that a colored sketch or even graphite only sketch IS art.

Examples:

Brian Froud Sketchbook page worth framing & hanging on your wall! 

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An old Iain McCaig Promo poster.  Colored Linework in which line enhances the piece instead of being completely lost!  And one of my favorite images.

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An Arthur Rackham image from "Sigfried & the Twilight of the Gods," I actually have framed and hanging on my wall - it's a reproduction made in the early 1900's!  Above image thanks to www.nocloo.com

Next post I'll show where I got it from...

Point of all this?  Linework still makes for fantastic art!

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Goldfish Watercolour Sketch

The above watercolour sketch reminded me of some exotic goldfish I'd seen at the Ellerslie Flower Show one year, instead of the usual bright orange color, they were a brilliant 'white' gold.

 

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Pure Imagination - Head in the Clouds

When I was a kid, my father had a Beechcraft Musketeer - a small 4-seat private plane, and he would on occasion take me flying to various California Airports.  An airplane graveyard is an interesting thing.  Anyway...

One of the things he taught me, that he perhaps didn't mean for me to enjoy so thorougly was playing the "What do you see in the clouds?" game.  I believe though, that the more you do it, the more your drawing ability improves - and the more you loosen up.  I love doing it with patches of watercolor as well - but you can see things in the oddest of shapes! 

 

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Merry Christmas 2009

Heading off to Australia for a couple weeks, so may not be adding posts again til after New Years!

Wishing All a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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The Time-Keepers

More crazy old-buggery Gnome-Dwarf-Faerie-Engineer types...

I know these veer greatly from the watercolory style, but sometimes just letting loose with the pencil & imagination is more fun than making pretty shinies.

A very dear friend of mine might remember this one... the above pic reminded me of the old copic marker drawing I did a few years ago, below - in celebration of what a Warhammer Dwarf might do when his Beer gets nicked.  At least it got a few laughs... :)

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Song of the Sea

Final Piece...

Went for more of the manga look with this piece, though tried to soften the look so as to look less 'cartoony.'  I'm usually reaching for somewhere between a playful look and fantasy look.

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Playaround painting with PS.  Sometimes I like to play around in photoshop, painter or artrage, painting a sketch - whether or not I go ahead and paint it separately with traditional media.  I liked the coloring in one sense but decided to go with the bluer, cooler tones in the final.

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Sketch...

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Studies - 1901 Railway Workers

Quick sketches from turn of the century photos- 

1901 Railway Workers

Wanted to get in a little warmup for a steampunkish illustration in the works...

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Operation Willow

It's always a new adventure - the path to choosing a 'final' piece...and always a sacrifice when translating between mediums.  Often, I like more than one version of a piece, it's hard to choose!

I wanted another 'ethereal' watercolor fantasy piece, but wanted to push the Glow, and let more of those hidden 'faerie' faces come out at me (they always seem to pop out and demand to be seen when I'm in the 'zone').

Quick & Dirty initial sketch of a willow tree concept:

Didn't like this idea, decided to make a more flowing piece bonsai style, on a much larger piece of illustration board....

There are a lot of problems with going from traditional pieces to digital. The below watercolor-painted piece, even with color corrections and adjustments, just never looks near as good as the real thing.  So although I like the piece, it needed more to do what I wanted it to do, in the end.

Now, to push the 'glow' - well, I've learned that there is a certain gorgeous glow, that you get from a hell of a lot of patience layering watercolors, waiting for them to dry, while trying to keep from damaging the paper.  This kind of glow, you only see in the original, impossible to see it on screen or in print.  Then there is lit-glow, that I also like to accomplish by other means.

Watercolor only has a certain level of darkness it can reach, so the scanning/inking/photoshop tweaks are necessary to get the final feel in the digital version of the piece below.

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Gemstone Dragons

Gemstone Dragon Series - Past work I wanted to migrate over with the site ^ ^

These were sketched and painted in watercolour on tiny, on ACEO (2.5" x 3.5") size illustration board cards.

Then, scanned & tweaked in photoshop.

In order from Top to bottom:

1. Amethyst
2. Jasper
3. Pearl
4. Moonstone
5. Topaz
6. Garnet
7. Diamond

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Life is short - start Creating!

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After much gnashing of teeth and soul searching, have (AGAIN) revamped and migrated site by combining site + blog !!!  Hope you will enjoy these improvements.

I'm giving up on trying to run too many things at once - because life is just too darn short !

Two things have stymied my art-creating time: Being a perfectionist, and spending too much time agonizing over web creation/management stuff.   
This leads to procrastination, amazing feats of contortionistic self butt-kicking, and various sundry sad emoticon-faces. I've decided to get back on the horse, AgAiN, and try once more.
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It makes more sense to me...

In terms of categorizing, blog functionality is a Master, far better than anything I could maintain or manage in a traditional site -- so I will let the link lists/tag cloud/categories for "galleries" come out of that - this is great if anyone wants to see the process and descriptions behind individual pieces.

I will also be posting a link to quick view slideshow galleries for perusal, for quick portfolio views.

Any feedback or thoughts (Just wanna say hi?), feel free to drop me a line.

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The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

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