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. 

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.

First draft design

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

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.

Antique Figure Drawing

So I was looking through some old sketchbooks as I try to continue keeping my workspace organized and I found these old figure drawings that I had meant to scan but I never did. To be honest it is a lot of them, so I will only be placing a couple on today. And actually anytime that I don't have another update for whatever project I happen to be working on I will continue to do so as well. The first set are some pen and ink stuff, that i liked the way they came out.

Enjoy:

PS: an old friend of mine also reminded me of a throw down challenge I had given him on FB late last summer, but we both got to busy with other stuff to do it. It is the redesign of a couple of DC characters that we love that will be voted upon by our peers. I will be posting those up here as well, so be sure to check in and vote soon.