What Do I Call It?

Lately, most of my energy has been put into fixing up my house.  I mean, dark paneling and hearts-made-of-flowers border are nice and all, but not really my style.  Check out the transformation so far:

Last night, I had some free time and broke out my art brushes.  I paid very close attention to my values this time.  This is something I have struggled with in the past.  The result is a much ore interesting painting than just a likeness.  At least, I think so.

The last step is coming up with a title, which is never much fun for me. I even struggle to title my blog posts.  How do you name things? 

Tricks for Tonal Value

For any artist, there are things we can handle instinctively and things we have to think about a little more.  For me, including a full and dynamic range of value takes more time and thought.  Thankfully, I had a painting teacher who was full of fun tricks, who gave me this idea. 

I took a plank of luan, and gessoed one side of it.  I marked the center and taped it off.  I then painted one half of it a middle grey (a 1:1 mix of black and white).  After it was dry, I centered the glass with the wood extending past the glass about 1/2 inch on all sides, and caulked it into place.  This is then what I use as a palette.  As I mix paints, the grey helps me judge the value of these colors.  Everything looks dark against white, so the grey lets me see whether it's on the light or dark side of center. 



The same teacher had other interesting ideas, like

• Marking a complete value scale on the palette
• Marking lines or sections by which you could measure paint, to allow for accurate reproduction of mixed colors
• adding a color wheel to the palette

He takes this analytical approach to mixing paints because he's colorblind.  And you know what?  His paintings are incredible, because of the wonderful range of value. The painting below is a model under satin sheets.  Would you look at that light?!

Another one of his tips was that if you use five evenly spaced values, we will interpret a full range.  Just five.  I try to make my big compositional decisions based on those five values. 

 Thanks, John Stewart!  Take a look at his faculty page on the school's site.  

Drawings from the Danger Booth

I always come back from one of Rachel's conventions feeling inspired.  That's enough of a reason to keep going.  So, I drew this picture of myself being goofy.  He photo was taken in a prank photo booth with a friend.  It's an interesting challenge to draw a strang expression.  You can't assume things.  Maybe that's why this sketch came together so quickly.

Have some fun!
Be silly!
Take photos!  Maybe you'll find yourself in the Danger Booth, too.  ;)

Anathema - Getting Down to the Wire!

I promise I'll get back to regular scheduled programming soon. But for now, I need your help. Rachel's kickstarter has only 4 days left, and we still have $1200 to raise! Please, please please spread the word! Even if you don't like horror or plan to pledge yourself, repost somewhere. It would mean the world to me! Here's the link to her marvelous lesbian werewolf epic fundraiser! It's basically a pre-order of the comic, with some added rewards like original artwork from the artist! Now seriously, who doesn't want original art? But it doesn't even get a chance if the funding isn't reached! Make her dreams come true!

Anathema Still Needs Your Help!

Anathema is nearly half way funded, but Rachel still needs your help!

She's got five issues, FIVE to fund with this thing.  I know what's coming and let me tell you, it's going to be an exciting ride!  Forbidden romance, action, mystery, Monsters created by a monster fanatic?  What more could you possibly want?

Now, I know some of you are probably thinking that comics are for kids, or for geeks, or are wondering how you even read one.  Let me tell you though, that it's an amazing way of telling stories.  You see, like a film, you have the option of telling things with words, or with pictures.  Rachel's got this incredible way of selecting which tells what, for the best results.  She wrote one comic for an upcoming anthology in which all the text comes from actual letters, but the story is told in pictures.  Glorious!

We're going to be at C2E2 this weekend, promoting this thing.  She's only got a couple of weeks to raise the remaining $10K!  So please help!

Why would a person need to raise that much for a comic, you wonder?
Well, it's like this:  Rachel is not an illustrator, so she has to hire one.  He'll do an 11x17 drawing for each page.     There's 22 of those per issue.  Then, because the illustrator only does the pencil and ink, you have to hire someone else to color those.  It's a basic fact that there is a LOT of work involved. Christopher Mooneyham is the artist, and he's stellar.  Check him out!

Out of the Rut - Thank You NYCC!

Perhaps a comic convention is not the normal place for a person to find their way out of the creative slump.  However, when you get to meet with well known comic creators, established (and EXTREMELY talented) artists, and hang out in Artist Alley all week, looking at people who do amazing work, it can light a fire under you.  It did for me, anyway.

So I did a little sketch yesterday, to improve upon my background work.  It's a little comic-ier than my normal stuff,  (It's like I only saw comic art for the entire time I was in NY, or something.) but I'm rather pleased with the amount of detail I achieved in a short period of time. I've needed work on backgrounds, environments, landscape, and detail in general for quite some time.  The trees are a little spatially confused, but I'll keep at it, and hopefully see some improvement quickly.  I'm just glad to feel this inspired again!  Hooray!!!

I was drawing from the book Lost Cities from the Ancient World.  Here's my pencil sketch, for your enjoyment.  Critique is welcome.

Pyramid at Palenque

Night Light

When it comes to how I choose to do things, I'm often a traditionalist.  Give me home made ice cream and clothes, paper literature, and real, messy, paint!  So when I say this, please understand how much it means:

I found a new appreciation for painting digitally. 

I had to take illustrated Rachel, and paint her as if she was in a dark room, with only the light of the laptop illuminating her.  This is not something I'd ever attempted before, but I know the way it should work.  I gave it a whirl, and what can I say, but success!  It was a really fun and interesting challenge, and will really test your knowledge of the way light works, and your understanding of human anatomy!

I can't wait to show off this drawing!

Illustrated Rachel

Here she is!  This is the illustrated version of Rachel.  It will be used for her Kickstarter video.  She added her initials to the background.  (RAD, in case you couldn't tell.  She's as proud of hers as I am of mine.) I've got 8 more illustrations to draw, and 16 or something to color.  At my current pace, I'm getting four drawn, and half of one colored each night.  That's three or four hours of work.  It doesn't feel like I'm getting much accomplished.  But when I consider that it took two or three weeks for Rachel's penciler to do her first page, I don't feel so bad.  

I need to start figuring out how much time it takes to do the illustration and color separately.  Then, perhaps I can start making this into a business.  My goodness, I would love to. As much frustration the hair caused me, I still feel better than I have in months.  It's like I've been missing a crucial nutrient, and getting it back, I realize how sick I was feeling.  

We're thinking about doing a weekly web comic.  It would naturally, feature us! Well, her,  mostly.  She's the funny one.  (Look for my Things My Sweetie Says posts.  Redonk!)  What do you think?  Totally lame idea, or would you read about us and look at my pretty pictures?

Drawing Up a Big Batch of Happy

Rachel and I always try to work together.  She's very much an ideas person, and I'm very much a do-er.  Unfortunately, our combined skills and ideas usually leave some kind of gap.  When she said she wanted a fairly normal, calligraphic logo for her comic, I doodled one.  Lo and behold, she liked it!

Now, we're in the process of putting together a video for a kickstarter page.  For those of you who don't know kickstarter, it's a website where creative people can collect donations to have their projects funded, and pledgers receive fun rewards.  Rachel doesn't like appearing in front of a camera, so we decided to draw her video.  Yes, that's right, I'm DRAWING the video.  I'm not fully animating it, that would be crazy.  I am doing sequential images to complement the sound.

Last night, I managed to draw 4 of the roughly 20 images we'll be using.  I got one partially colored, too.  Drawing black hair is kind of difficult, as it turns out! Nevertheless, those four hours we spent at the computer working on these drawings were some of the most enjoyable ones I've had in a while.  I was seriously sitting at the computer GIGGLING because I was so entertained.  Of all the things I enjoy, making art is the most enjoyable.

May you always have as much fun being productive as I did last night!

Remember the Zornow Challenege?  I do.  I'm still working on it.  When I post the video, you'll have to let me know how I'm doing. :)

New Rule

For every project I do for myself, I have to make one for the shop. That means in order to reach my two project/week goal, I have to make at least one for the shop. If I decide I want to make two projects just for me, I have to make two for the shop. Yes, that's twice the work load. However, the thing I've been hearing most is "I think you need more in your shop!" That may mean a flood of new mini paintings, but darn it, at least I'll be doing something! And mini paintings might just be the perfect avenue to explore comic style illustration, for the Zornow Challenge!

Did I just tie all my little goals together with a neat little goal? Yes, yes I think I did. :)

Also, TMSS#16:

To the dog: "I know you just want to get at my face chop!"

Many Project Weekend

What a productive weekend!  I baked my very first home made loaf of bread.  Yum!  I also completed my first yubinuki thimble!

It's not all that pretty, but it's not bad for a first try!  Much was learned in the making, and it's still functional so I won't count it a loss.

I also completed the second of two meditation bags I was commissioned to make.  Since they are spiritual in nature and have personal symbols, I opted not to photograph them.  It's just not my place.  But they're black velvet, lined, and embroidered with silver thread.  I must say, I'm pretty proud of them, and my client was extremely pleased!

Remember that beautiful fabric I found?  Well it became the Gathered Clutch from Noodlehead.

Gathered Front

Back - See how great this fabric is?!

Interior with card holders - Mine has four slots instead of two.

Interior with divider.

It was surprisingly easy to construct.  It's not a beginner project, but it's not a challenging one, and the result is just lovely.  I'm still not certain I like the light pink on the outside, but the darker swirly stuff looked just too busy with everything else that was going on.  I have enough for a second one, so perhaps I'll try it and see.  And since this was a gift to Rachel, and she's 100% happy with the light pink, I won't worry too much about it.

I also brought in a haul of patterns, spending only about $25.  When my receipt said I saved $68, I was very glad I decided to go in that day! Good thinking, Rachel!

And lastly, since Rachel's had too many flaky artists, I've decided to learn comic style illustration.  This began of course with the Zornow Challenge.  I'm also looking at some great art from the classics like CREEPY, EERIE, and anything by Bernie Wrightson.  I picked up his Frankenstein at this amazing comic shop in Salem.    This is the art on the cover, and if you've ever seen the inside, well it's perfection in pen and ink.  In any case, here are my meager beginnings.  I spent some time just copying artwork, and then decided it was going to make more sense to do my own.  So I found this portrait of Jacopo Tintoretto and tried my hand at the illustration style.  It's a work in progress, but I'm pleased, nonetheless.

See where I've left out the shading on his left cheek?  I'll get it though, eventually.