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.