Lights, Cameras, and Sketchbooks. At Staples.

I had about 30 minutes yesterday to sketch something. So I parked behind Staples, it was the first place I saw. The sun was going down. I knew from last time I was around here at the same time that the lighting changes completely within minutes. So I took these two pictures to share on here (I didn't use any of these for the sketch though). 

I took this right before I started sketching. I noticed everything but the sky (and that tiny light) was like a giant dark mass.

I took this one right before I left. Everything had shifted.
Now the sky, ground and buildings had all gone dark together. While that light in the foreground kept appearing lighter and lighter. 

So basically the whole thing had shifted from light in the background, to light in the foreground within 30 minutes.

 In my sketch I tried to meet right in the middle. That weird moment with the last of the sunlight fading, and the power of artificial lights taking over. In the 30 minutes I had, I think I spent about 25 on the pencil drawing. By the time I was finished with that I could hardly see anything. Both inside my car and outside. And I had to go. Next time I'll try to get the drawing done early so I can focus on everything else while it happens.

Clutter and Christmas Sketch

Yesterday I sat down for a while with a ballpoint pen and sketched a corner of my house. I thought about straightening up the area to make a cleaner picture, but decided against it.

I like doing these kinds of sketches of random scenes from everyday life. In a few years when I look at it again, it will seem strange that it was ever real. This sketch will prove that it was and I'll remember it much better than if I had just taken a photo. And all the seemingly insignificant memories of what was going on at the time will return a whole lot more significant.

White Whale Process Video

I always like seeing how other people go about painting and what their process is. No matter what level they're at, it's still interesting. Paying attention to and documenting the process behind a painting helps me remember what to do or what I should never do again. 

Instead of posting a bunch of pictures and talking about them, I just made this little slideshow of some earlier sketches and process shots. There's some music I wrote in the background too.

White Whale Oil Painting

I was commissioned to paint this in oil after I painted almost the same thing digitally a few months ago. I just finished this one a few days ago.

The Oil Painting 16 x 20 in.

The oil painting took about 75 hours, and the digital one took about 5. It really is more rewarding in traditional paints though, at least to me. I'll try to do a post on the process of it soon if I can.

small portrait study

As part of an assignment for ConceptArt.Org's LevelUp, I did a small study of a J. C. Leyendecker painting. I spent a few hours on it, and it made me wonder why I don't do more portraits. It also reminded my why I don't do more portraits.

Leyendecker's is on the right, mine is on the left.

And if you've never heard of him, and would like a short introduction to him and some of the other Illustrators from the Golden Age of Illustration, I would suggest this little video.

People at the Library

Whenever I get a chance I try to sketch people in public. I'm not often in a place where lots of people are, so I sometimes go to the library on breaks from work and sketch people there. Most of these are very small and they happen very quickly, which is something I really haven't gotten used to yet.

Making Models

Here are a few of the models I've made for recent paintings.  They're small and kind of silly, but I think they help a whole lot in making things look a little bit more real.

I learned about this in the book Imaginative Realism by James Gurney

THS Concession Stand

I'm not really sure that this building is a concession stand, I think it is. Or it was for the old baseball fields at Titusville High School and doubled as storage. When I was in high school, I remember walking to this building with another student to get a box or something to help out a teacher. I don't really remember what for. I think it was cold that day, and maybe sunny. That's all I really remember. Other than that one time, I never went near it.

Pumpkin Cabin Oil Painting

click to enlarge

Here's the finished "Pumpkin Cabin" painting that I've been working on for the past month or so. 

October and Pumpkins.

I guess I like to paint a lot of pumpkins around October, because you can't see them for the rest of the year.

Watercolor at the Crossroads

Here are the latest sketches from my new little watercolor kit (which I'm really liking).

I had to run to Staples the other night, so I figured I'd bring my sketch kit and watercolor something before the sun went down. I parked my car in the parking lot and just kinda sketched the first thing I saw. I've always found it weird, seeing all those artificial lights when the sun starts going down. It just feels awkward and unnatural.

ConceptArt.org

I joined LevelUp a few months ago, an online workshop at ConceptArt.org mostly for digital artists. I want to get more familiar with digital painting, so I decided this would probably be a good way to do so.

I kind of overestimated myself though. With my other assignments that I've been doing in the Famous Artist Course (which i'll maybe post about later), I haven't been going through the LevelUp assignments as quickly as I would like.

For instance, 2 months ago I received the first assignment: 20 black and white composition studies of masters. Which is basically just copying other works you like.

I'm only on number 8 i think. Which is just sad... But here's the latest one I did. They're not supposed to take forever, so you try not to spend too long on them. This one took me about 3 hours.

 The original is on the left, by Frank Frazetta. Mine is on the right.

The Bus Stop

The other day I had a 15 minute break at work, I left as quickly as I could and parked next to the bus stop. I took out my watercolor kit and and started sketching. 

My Travel Watercolor Kit

I've been putting together a little watercolor travel kit. Narrowing my old set up down to just the essentials and trying to keep it all fitting in my pocket. I'd prefer to use brushes and a cup of water instead of a water-brush (and sometime still do if I have more time) but if you add those, it gets pretty tough to just fit in your pocket... So here's my set up:

All of it fits in your pocket.

An old cough drop tin (basically an Altoids tin), watercolor sketchbook, water-brush, and a water-soluble colored pencil. There's also a small magnet stuck to the side of the tin (you can just barely see it) and a paper towel inside the sketchbook.

Here it is opened up.

8 bowls for color, and two mixing areas. (I havn't filled my 8th bowl yet)

 I sculpted the white part out of Sculpey, cooked it, and then sprayed it with a few coats of white enamel to keep it waterproof and then super-glued it to the tin.

The tin is held on by a magnet on the opposite side of the page.

I got tired of trying to balance the tin on my leg while I worked, so I put a magnet on the other side of the previous page and it holds nice and snug, even if you tilt it like this.

Overall I'm pretty happy about it.

Here are some times where I've used it:

Dumpster Monster
 A Bored Guy and a Squirrel and a Bus Stop
The Bus Stop
Watercolor at the Crossroads
Sketching at Fort Christmas
Sketching in Downtown Titusville
Still Life
THS Concession Stand
October and Pumpkins.
Christmas Still Life


All of this was super inspired by James Gurney's Watercolor in the Wild DVD and all of his blog posts.

Halloween Paintings

In honor of October first and all that is Halloween, I've been painting some halloween paintings and then listing them on my Etsy store. Just fun, smaller paintings. If I do anymore before halloween, I'll post them here too. 

Happy October!!!

Oil painting, i think its 6 x 6 in

 

Acrylic and a little bit of oil paint 8 x 10 in

Pumpkin Cabins

I mentioned before that I was doing sketches of a specific animal every week. This week I decided to switch it up and do 'Cabins' instead.

And since Halloween is coming up somewhat soon, my wife and I have been buying and making decorations and things. I guess pumpkins have been on my mind as a result, so I sketched out some "Pumpkin Cabins" as well.

Earlier sketches of the "White Whale" painting.

These are some of the earlier sketches I made before I painted the painting from my last post.

The first time the idea showed up in my sketchbook.

a little more complicated thumbnail (with a lot of changes).

another little sketch.

Some Pine Tree studies from my backyard.

the "almost finished" final drawing, I added the mushrooms and took out the rocks later.

a little model I made out of Sculpey to help me picture it better.

And if you just scroll down you should be able to see the finished picture.

White Whale Painting

Here's a digital painting I just finished. I had been sketching a lot of whales and eels in my sketchbook, so it just kind of evolved from that.

Weekly Animals

A few weeks ago I decided I would study a new animal every week for the next year, in order to help with my visual library. So I made a list of 52 random animals and every week I fill up a few pages with each one. First one was venomous snakes, then eels, then fish and this week its bats. It's been really fun and educational so far. Here's one sketch from venomous snake week

Eel Week

and Fish week.

Octopus Cornhole Board

The final drawing with some digital painting on top.

So for the second Cornhole Board I was asked to make, I was basically told to have the Octopus sort of reaching for the hole, coming out from the corner of the board.

Before starting right away on the board I wanted to learn a little about the octopus. So I watched a lot of documentaries on youtube and did a lot of sketches and a couple little study paintings. Here's a few of them:

Ink and wash on some watercolor paper

a really small oil painting.

I made an entire folder full of octopus sketches. Apparently I had no idea what an octopus looked like until i started researching it. 

After I finished the final drawing (which took awhile), I went to Staples and had them print it out on a huge piece of paper, the same size as the cornhole board. I covered the back in pencil and then traced it straight onto the board.

The final drawing. about 2.5 x 5 in.

The final drawing blown up and getting traced down to the board.

And then of course I painted on top of that for about two weeks...

This is me, probably ruining my back with that posture.

And here it is finished.

Angler Fish Cornhole Board part 4

I decided to take a quick break and just kind of paint a little angler fish for no specific reason. It was more of a sketch I guess. Just for fun. Thats what this guy is. I used ink and wash.

Just a little painting for fun. 

But then I went back to the cornhole board...

I had to figure out what colors I wanted to use, so i did a few smaller paintings just to try things out. I kept it almost monochromatic because I really don't understand colors at all and i was afraid it would get to be too complicated when I was having enough trouble already.

So here are the much smaller practice paintings in oil.

about 6 inches tall.

about 12 inches tall 

These also helped me get used to the oil paint a little more. Or at least they were suppose to.

One of a few reference photos I used.

After realizing I couldn't put off the final painting forever, I did the finished drawing that had to be transferred directly to the cornhole board.

The finished drawing

So this was scaled up and drawn straight onto the board. Which I painted over on top of.  And then... After painting for a few weeks (which actually seemed like decades) The painting was finally finished... And that was that.

Here's the finished painting again, incase you missed it in Angler Fish Cornhole Board part 1.

Of course, finishing this only meant I was halfway done lol... So stay tuned for the octopus board coming up next!

Angler Fish Cornhole Board Part 3

        After narrowing down all the thumbnail sketches in my last post, I ended up picking this one:

It's pretty rough, but I thought it was probably the clearest composition out of the bunch.

        I then had to come up with some actual angler fish designs. I really didn't know how I wanted him (actually a her, the males are tiny) to look. So I brought up a few reference images of different types of angler fish, and just kind of selected my favorite features from all of them. These are a few of the designs I came up with.

And this one was my favorite. I guess I liked the teeth or something.

         After I had the design, I built a little reference model or maquette (?) or whatever you want to call it. A fish out of Sculpey.

wooden stand, aluminum wire, aluminum foil, and sculpey

         I bought A wooden dowel and a block of wood from the hardware store, put them together and made a stand. Made a wire armature/ fish skeleton out of aluminum wire. Covered the wire with tin foil to bulk it out some. Glued all of that together with Two Part Epoxy. Got out the Sculpey and started sculpting.

Covering the foil with Sculpey.

And after a day or two of randomly working on it, It was ready to be cooked.

         I had to turn it sideways in the oven because it was too big. I shouldn't have made it so big, but I really had no idea what I was doing. If I did it again I would... still have no idea.


After it cooled down I just covered it in brown and white acrylic paint.

Finished.

In the next post I'll show you some of the experiment/ practice paintings.