Studies, painting, blue

I've been fUNemployed more times than not these past few years. Not to say I didn't make some money, but if I'm not getting paid to be an artist I consider myself an unemployed artist.

You get a bit blue.

I'm trying to remind myself (not forget really) why I like being an artist. I started a Pinterest board for reference and inspiration. And it does make me want to create. But with the move I feel like I can't find all the things I had slowly collected for all of my art endeavors. But that just excuses.

So I'm painting from a photo reference. Found on Pinterest, seen through my phone, and interpreted by my current art skills. Strangely at this point I feel like it can turn into a self portrait, but I'm going to continue trying to capture OTHER faces and thus continue to grow. Just a start. As always.

Enjoy.

Late night drawing

While watching a puppetry documentary. I need to learn more of this. And make more puppets.

Fond memories

I did a quick colored sketch of a brightly redheaded girl, with blown out features. I did not, on me, have the right shades of red to show off the beautiful unnatural tones of her hair, but I did what I could. After which I scanned it in with at a handy massive office copier and realized that it had been blown out even more. So I tried to color correct it in Photoshop some (the image on the left), and thought it still didn't capture what I loved about the original piece. That being said I took a photo of it using the camera on my phone and you get the image on the right. Neither of which do the piece justice, but it's what I got.

I feel as if she is remembering a happy moment in her life, so that's why I named the post the way I did. That was not, I believe, the intention of the original photograph, but I obviously like mine better. I still feel as if subtleties of the original piece are missing. The soft tones of the watercolors contrasting with the brights of the marker in the hair aren't readily apparent in either case. But maybe I'm just in love with my own piece, and well, someone has to be. That's ok, though. As long as I don't start believing that I can't improve. As long as I continue to aspire to add new skill sets to my work. There will always be new techniques, new materials, new ideas and images to design. As long as I never loose the will to keep striving, I'll be OK. Don't you think?
Either way hope you enjoy.
PS If you want to see the original photograph click here. 

Detail: Twisted Sister

 

Here is the close-up version of the Twisted Sister. Here you can see the hands and torso. I hope you get why I say that the head on the other page is better. Just gotta keep going!

Twisted Sister

 

I saw a drawing, possibly painting of a slightly deformed but cute girl with a crown and I was smitten. But as always I wanted to make it my own. I twisted her more, made her screaming (hopefully) more visceral. Added a touch of color to spots. Is it perfect? No. But I feel my hands are getting better, and the grotesque aspects of the drawing, position, image are much more present. I did not want this to be cute. The scream and the neck I feel are better in the lower left hand side of the image, but the body and torso are better in the colored side. Maybe another try in a couple of days, based off these sketches and not the original, can make this even better.

Regret

I've been told that sometimes when I do a sketch off of a reference photo or image, I'm too derivative. It's too obviously a copy. I've been told that I need to take the ref image as a starting point and do my own thing with it, tweak it and add more of myself into it. But usually if I pick a ref image there is something about it that speaks to me, an emotion, lighting, color that moves me to enjoy looking at it. And it is that that makes me want to replicate it. I want to capture for myself that which inspired me in the first place. So here it was her back. The long line if spine curving into the blackness of her dress. But I moved her. Twisted the shoulders, rotated the head, gave her an emotion that wasn't part of the original photograph. The emotion that I felt was best for her was regret. Sadness. A loss of something we as a viewer don't know, but can hopefully feel from her...

Maybe it works and maybe it doesn't. But I need to move on with my art, and though mimicry can help, it only helps to a point. I need to go beyond that. I need to find that well of unstopable images I had as a younger artist but with the skills the years have given me. Here's to hoping that that is what I am doing.

Enjoy.

Colored sketch of a doll

This sketch is based off a photograph of a hand made doll. She had a lot of beautiful coloring and materials and I loved the delicacy of her posing as well as the twist of the torso. I tried to capture as much as I could of the eclectic textures and colors while at the same time not loosing the feel of the paper and the colored pencils on it. I do know that I need to get back to doing more original pieces not based off other people's photograph and art, but I also feel that I haven't been doing enough general art on a consistent basis to feel comfortable doing that. Maybe I'm just scared (common enough in artist) and am using that as a crutch. But I do feel that skill wise I am getting better and I should try to incorporate a bit more my own "visions" into my art and not just repeat and repeat and repeat. When should the dancer stop basing her moves solely on choreographed work and start moving to the music on instinct?

I'm feeling crabby

And so should you. And snaily, a little jelly fishy.

Knitting, knitting and more knitting

I've been working on a couple more knitting projects. Trying to design a nice little crop top and more shrugs, since LA is too hot for proper sweaters, but I still gotta knit. This is the beginning of a sleeve for a crop top that will be knit in 2 sections sewn together off center in the front and back. There is a lot of math going on here, but I didn't want to make the same mistake I did for the previous shrug in which I had to frog the back portion at least 3 times since I didn't take notes, or stop and truly think about it while I was knitting. That one is still not perfect so I won't show it to you until after I "fix" it properly. Here's to hoping that I've learned something from the last one and this one is not only easier, but looks better as well. I may possibly type up the patterns of both of them, but I have to see if I like then first.

Haughty Taughty Woman

Another quick sketch. Trying to keep my hand in it so to speak.

Fish head

After an unfortunate water bottle accident I had to scrap my old sketchbook and start over. This is one of my first "doodles" in it. I like it. It's fun and a bit random.

She looks broken

And I need to work on my foreshortening. But I'm in love with the image so I felt like sharing. Feel free to compare and contrast against the ref photo.

First draft design

For a fabric embroidered and painted artwork that I'm figuring out in my head.

Now in Technicolor

So I promised a while ago that I would color her and post her up. Well I didn't then, but I'm doing it now. Took me a while to remember how to color in Photoshop (especially since we have a newer version than before), but I think I did ok. Hadn't really given any thought on the overall color scheme, but I feel she worked out well. The umbrella is still off, which upsets me a bit more now, but I am happy with the hands and feet. And I really feel like my coloring really gives her more dimension than my line work alone did. I've been told I need to work on that, can't rely solely on color for depth and dimension, but I gotta start somewhere right? I'll scan a couple more preliminary sketches of the skulls soon so that you can see what a couple of hours of Google Imaging various mammalian skulls can do to my concept of 3 Dimensionality as it relates to skulls.

Hope you like this and all that is to come.

More skulls as promised

Some of my original sketches that inspired the previous post. It was a small challenge that Liam gave me. Draw a bunch of different types of skulls. Can you tell which ones I was able to do?

A sneak preview:

Of my next painting. Still in the design stage. Did some research online to get this done properly. Now thinking on it though, the canvases I just bought might be too small...
We'll see how it is after final design and layout. Just making sure you guys know I'm still around. I'll give you another page of skulls tomorrow.
Enjoy!

Colored doodle

Since my easel and paints haven't arrived, I've grown antsy. It's a crazy doodle using my watercolor pencils and watercolors. Thought you'd like it, well at least hoped you did. Let me know.

Not gone yet!

Sorry for the long delay, but I've just become a transplant. Moved myself from cold cynical (yet always in my heart) NY to laid back sunny LA. Gonna see if I can keep up with the high quality of work that is produced out here. Fingers crossed!